The Caledonian Star has just begun her second Antarctic voyage of the season. After a day of stunning scenery in the Beagle Channel she prepares to head south. The winds are a steady force 8, or a full gale, but we anchor the ship in the lee of Cape Horn Island and go ashore by Zodiac. Ninety-nine steep and uneven steps lead to the crest of the hill. No trees grow here at this southern most point of the Americas but what draws the eye is a sculpture in relief. Large steel plates form the outline of an albatross, tilted up as if wheeling on the winds and facing the open ocean to the south.

This bit of land marked the turning point for sailing ships carrying cargo across the oceans in a time since past. The easier route was downwind, from the Pacific to the Atlantic while the reverse usually meant battling into the gales, which rage around the Southern Ocean in the 'furious fifties' throughout the year. Most sailors called this the 'Cape of Storms'. Countless ships were lost almost within sight of this steel-framed albatross and the sculpture serves as a monument to those sailors who disappeared with their ships. The stone tablet nearby is in Spanish and the English translation follows.

I am the albatross who awaits you at the end of the world. I am the soul of ancient mariners who rounded Cape Horn from the seas of the world.

They did not perish in the furious waves. Today they fly on my wings for all eternity In the embrace of the Antarctic winds. Sara Vial - December, 1992