Cape Horn & Beagle Channel
After feeling a bit of the Drake’s famous rough waters overnight, it was wonderful to wake up in calm waters just off Cape Horn. Just after breakfast, we were able to step out on deck to see the Horn and had our eyes adjust to seeing green trees along the shoreline! Staff member Eric read to us a beautiful poem in tribute to all the lost sailors, which is etched at the bottom of the Albatross sculpture that we could see in the distance. There were rafts of Magellanic penguins swimming near the ship as well as black browed albatrosses circling around us all day. We also had glimpses of Peale’s dolphins racing up to the bow and it was delightful to watch them leaping in the ship’s wake.
It was a day with lots of time to pack and sort through the many thousands of images taken during our time in Antarctica. There was even the opportunity to help the Oceanites researchers clean off their collected penguin eggshells. We heard our last presentation by Peter Hillary about his epic adventure climbing K2. Ira Block, our National Geographic Photographer, told us about his assignment on following a Japanese explorer to the North Pole.
In the evening, we toasted the end of an incredible journey at Captain Kruess’s farewell cocktail party. It started with a wonderful slideshow of photographs and it was fun to see some many different perspectives for the same trip! It reminded us of all wonderful wildlife moments we experienced and the fantastic adventure we had during our time in the great white south of the Antarctic!
