Today we got a small taste of what the infamous Drake Passage can offer. Comfortably seated in the lounge, we rolled with the swells as we listened to a description of the Indian Antarctic Program, which was followed by a discussion of environmental issues affecting Antarctica. We watched a dramatic rounding of the horn completed by the last of the great square-riggers, the Peking, in 1929. As Captain Irving Johnson described his adventures we watched waves cover the deck of this great ship and thanked God we were experiencing a much different rounding of Cape Horn.
Under a sunlit sky we peered at Cape Horn, a once deadly spot, and thought of the monument erected there, dedicated to the sailors who have lost their lives in the seas around Cape Horn. The monument is an outline of an albatross, which sailors believe is the form their soul takes if lost at sea.
