2016 Cruise of Cape Horn
Here is the long-awaited web article documenting my long-awaited trip to Cape Horn. I’ve wanted to go to Cape Horn for a long time. After reading all about Sir Ernest Shackleton, and reading all of the Patrick O’Brien Aubrey and Maturin novels (Master and Commander) and visiting the Cape of Good Hope in 2008 and Cape Agulhas in 2014, it has been a goal of mine.
Les wrote me that the Cape of Good Hope and Buenos Aires are essentially at the same latitude. Cape Horn is 1300 miles further south than The Cape of Good Hope. A far piece. Also, the first rounding of Cape Horn was January 26, 1616 by Willem Shouten and Jacob LeMaire. They named the area "Kaap Hoorn" after Shouten's home city of Hoorn in the Netherlands.
And, I am a stubborn Dutchman. My maternal grandmother’s surname being Van Vlack. Once I looked up what Van Vlack means in Dutch. It means ”from the north” so I assume her ancestors migrated to Holland from the north, which would make them, perhaps, Norwegian? Or any other Scandinavian country. Perhaps Denmark. And I on a Norwegian Lines ship? I can’t remember...
I’ve broken this story into 5 parts:
1 - our time in Buenos Aires, Argentina
2- our First Week Aboard
3 - our Second Week Aboard
4 - Saturday, April 9, disembark Norwegian Sun in Santiago, overland to Valparaiso, and flying north
5 - The plans written before the cruise.
Here is what the overall cruise looked like:
