Cape Horn

On days when there’s something especially scenic Holland America opens up the front bow so people have somewhere outside to go besides the promenade deck and back deck to see the scenery. The Crow’s Nest observation lounge with its floor to ceiling windows across the front of the ship is also a good place, as is anywhere with a window or people’s own balconies. They have commentary in the Crow’s Nest and on the outside decks, but not other places where people might go to see things.

bowcam view

Commentary is on the bow cam channel in the staterooms too.

sunrise on the way to Cape Horn

Our balcony was on the port side and it looked as if Holland America Oosterdam would pass by on the starboard side so we went up to the Crow’s Nest shortly after 5am to watch from there. All of the seats by the front window were already full, which is not surprising thinking back to having staked ours out for a Panama Canal cruise at 4am and just beating the next people there by a few minutes for a later arrival than what we had here. The coffee bar in the Crow’s Nest did not open until its usual 6am at which time the line was extremely long so we didn’t bother. If somebody really wanted coffee or tea that badly they could have made it to the Lido buffet at the other end of the ship and back long before getting through the line at the coffee bar.

sailing past cape horn

The ship’s path was not displayed on any screens in the Crow’s Nest, but we watched it on the ship finder app on my phone. Ship finder used to be really good at showing all the ships in any area of the world, but it is not so good in some areas now. It might show some ships halfway around the world, but none anywhere nearby even when you can look out the window and see them. It didn’t even show the ship we were on as a ship. It will still pinpoint your current location on the map wherever you are even if it isn’t showing any ships in that area, which was all we really needed for this even if it did show our ship as a current location dot rather than as a ship. There are better navigation apps available.

jaws of the sea

Before reaching the cape we passed a rock formation which the naturalist onboard doing the commentary called the jaws of the sea.

sunrise over the jaws of the sea

Instead of going straight to the cape like we had expected, the ship sailed around the island and rounded it from the other direction so we went back to our room where we had the port side view since that turned out to be the side we would actually see it from. The seats we had chosen in the Crow’s Nest were starboard where the majority of the land mass was at the time as well as the side we would have passed Cape Horn on if we’d gone directly there rather than taking a detour around the island.

clouds over Cape Horn resembling a smoking volcano

It’ s nice to have a balcony for scenic things where you can run outside and get photos, but still go back into the room to warm up or listen to the commentary. It takes awhile to sail around the horn. There was a dark cloud on top of the cliff that is Cape Horn so it kind of looked like a volcano spewing up ash, though of course it really wasn’t.

giant rocks jutting out of the sea by Cape Horn

We sailed past scenic islands and rock formations on the way to Cape Horn. There were some pretty big rock formations near the cape as well.

in the dining room on Cape Horn night

From the times of old sailing ships they say that if you round Cape Horn you are entitled to pierce your left ear to wear a gold hoop and you are allowed to put one foot on the table when dining. If you also round the Cape of Good Hope in Africa you can then put both feet on the table and get a tattoo of a square sailed ship on your chest.

land passed after rounding the horn

The tip of South America is not one solid land mass, but rather a bunch of islands. Cape Horn is a high cliff on an island called Hornos Island, which is the southernmost one. There is a flatter land mass stretching out into a point that has a lighthouse, the farthest southernmost church in the world, and a monument. If you can afford the small ship expedition sort of cruise with zodiacs they will go to shore there weather permitting, but the regular cruise ships just look at it from the ship.

buildings near Cape Horn

One family lives at Cape Horn. There’s a lighthouse keeper who is a member of the Chilean navy with the applications for the voluntary position only open to married men who move there with their family. They stay for one year and then a new family takes over.

Australis ship and its zodiacs

We saw a ship from the Australis line near the structures sending people to shore. They had said we would get close enough to see the stairway up to the monument, but apparently that ship was blocking the way because we didn’t do that. Of course they were actually using the stairway rather than just sailing by to look at it like we would have done.

Cape Horn

Our ship turned there to give people on the starboard side a view of the lighthouse and other structures, but when rounding the cape itself people had to be on the port side to see it.

pilot boat zipping past our window

Local pilots sail with the ship as it passes around the horn. We sailed quite a way north to the pilot station where the pilot boat came to pick up the local pilots off the ship before turning south again to head across Drake Passage to Antartica. Pilots may be the reason for circling the island since we had to pick one up somewhere.

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