Cape Horn

We had a long and laborious trip from the South Shetlands to Ushuaia. At the beginning the seas were a little rough, although not nearly as high as on our trip down to Antarctica. We werer told that our passage down across the Drake Passage was the roughest that Peregrine had experienced for the whole season. On the other hand, we had five times as many sunny days in Antarctica as does the normal trip. I thìnk that I prefer the sun!

Our time on the return trip was filled in with more presentations from our on-board experts on subjects such as Conservation n Antarctica, Climate Change and The Antarctic Convention. These people had a very good knowledge of their subject and had a high level of subject matter expertise.

At lunch time on Friday, we rounded Cape Horn which is regarded by sailors as the equivalent to climbing the Everest of the Seas. The sea was flat and we sat out on the deck in the sunshine feeling like very comfortable mariners. This nice weather pretty well stayed with us until we reached Ushuaia this morning right on time at 7.00 am.

On our last night we had a review of our trip by the staff and a slide show of photographs that they had made along the way. We were all given a certificate for our participation in the expedition and we campers received another one describing the name and our position of our camping site at Portal Point. The Captain attended our final dinner and we had three toasts – one to Antarctica, another to us as intrepid adventurers and a final one to all those at home who wondered why the hell we would wanted to come to such a place.

We reached Ushuaia at 7.00 am today, said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. I am now back in Buenos Aries having had dinner with our friend Trudi who is about to start her own adventure to Antarcica and the Chillean Fiords. All I have to do is now suffer the long trip home. I was hoping to put up some of my photos, but this machine won’t recognise my USB card. This is my final post for the trip as it is now all over but for the shouting. However, lookout on Wednesday February 8th for some stunning photos.