Cape Horn (Cabo de Hornos) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which are the Diego Ramírez Islands), Cape Horn marks the northern boundary of the Drake Passage and marks where the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans meet.
Cape Horn was discovered and first rounded by the Dutchman Willem Schouten, who named it Kaap Hoorn after the city of Hoorn in the Netherlands. For decades, Cape Horn was a major milestone on the clipper route, by which sailing ships carried trade around the world. The waters around Cape Horn are particularly hazardous, owing to strong winds, large waves, strong currents and icebergs; these dangers have made it notorious as a sailors' graveyard. Over 800 ships have met there fate in these waters and 10,000 seaman have perished.
From the time Europeans began trading across the world until the opening of the Panama Canal, Cape Horn was a necessary evil and a dreaded rite of passage for sailors. Now that goods can be transported through the Panama Canal by a route that is much shorter and safer, Cape Horn is more of a historical and navigational footnote.
It looked barren and desolate when I arrived - and it was except for one very important monument.
On the island itself you can see the building that houses the one Chilean caretaker family that lives there year round, with their national flag and small chapel.
But what is still very important is the monument to all the sailors who lost their lives sailing around Cape Horn, put there in 1992 by the Chilean Navy. It’s a large bronze sculpture about 25 feet high in two pieces whose outline form the shape of the albatross. Beneath it is a plaque with a poem written in Spanish that reads:
- “I, the albatross that awaits for you at the end of the world...
- I, the forgotten soul of the sailors lost that crossed Cape Horn
- from all the seas of the world.
- But die they did not in the fierce waves, for today towards
- eternity in my wings they soar in the last
- Crevice of the Antarctic winds.”
A Sailors Honor - to be the first one on the island to greet passengers and the last one off as a sign of respect to those sailors that didn't come back from their attempt to round Cape Horn.
Next post from this trip.
