Now to the East of Cape Horn

The Schooner Maggie B rounded Cape Horn at 1800, December 6th. The wind was a 10 knot westerly and we were under all plain sail. We have now altered our course to the Northeast, towards home. We expect the Straits of Marie at 0415 tomorrow morning, high water slack. The barometer is down to 993, down 12 millibars since 0600.

All is well.

Location 55° 26S, 67° 06W
Thursday 12.06.2007

The Schooner Maggie B was at 55° 26S, 67° 06W at noon on December 6th. We have come 45 NM from Puerto Williams and have 33 NM to go to the Horn. The Horn! We estimate to pass it at 1600.

The weather is nice! We have a light (15 knot) NW wind and the overcast is midlevel. It isn’t raining! There are even “bright intervals.” But this is very much literally the calm before the storm. The barometer was at 1000 at noon and it has dropped another millibar as of this writing. Some very significant pressure is coming in from the West. The Horn should have 30-40 knots tomorrow.

We hope to stay ahead of the storm, at least for a while. If we pass the Horn at 1600, we should be at the Straits of Le Maire (between Terra del Fuego and Staten Island) at about 0400 tomorrow, which would be perfect asthat would be first light and the end of the very vicious north-going flood tide. The Straits have a terrible reputation: 10 meter standing waves are regularly reported when the strong northerly flood is opposed by a strong northerly (opposite) wind.

As always, we are keeping our options open. There are two good anchorages in the vicinity of the Horn — we’ll tuck in one if we get jumped early. Right after the Straits of Le Maire there is an excellent anchorage on Staten Island, which we will use if the wind promises to be too strong for us to head north right away. But so far so good. This is about as good a “window” as one can get for the Horn in spring.

Getting resuppled in Puerto Williams yesterday was a huge teamwork task. With no real supermarket, we got food from three different stores. Propane took several hours and some good luck. For diesel, we had to move to the main Armada pier (after getting permission and getting the gas station to send out their truck). Laundry took a long walk, some cajoling, much money and wasn’t delivered back to the boat until 2300. The Post Office was friendly but complicated — it costs more to send mail from Puerto Williams than Puerto Montt? And the Armada/Customs/Immigration was…bureaucratic. We did not get our Zarpa issued and passports back until 0130 this morning. We left at 0600.

All is well.