Beyond the Compass Part VI

nmboughton
3 days ago
2 min read

Rounding Cape Horn — Releasing the Arrow

Departing Ushuaia felt surreal.

For days, the town had felt like a drawn bow—tight with anticipation, every line pulled back, every detail primed. And then, with the slightest release, we were in motion. A 30-year dream was no longer an idea. It was underway.

As the ship eased away from the dock in Ushuaia, I took more photos than anyone could ever reasonably need. The colorful buildings, the harbor, the mountains rising behind the city—all of it slowly slipping behind us as the Antarctic sun dropped lower in the sky.

This wasn’t just leaving a port. It felt like leaving the known world.

A few hours later, long after most cities would have gone dark, we were back on deck. Ahead of us lay one of the most legendary points on the planet.

In grade school, we read about this place.The rocky coast that swallowed ships.The waters where storms rose without warning.

This was the turning point of empires and trade routes, feared by sailors long before engines replaced sails. These were the same waters navigated by explorers like Ferdinand Magellan, later charted by James Cook, and eventually named for Francis Drake, whose voyages proved there was open ocean beyond the tip of South America.

And yet, here I was.Looking at the lighthouse at the end of the world.

The cliffs were stark and dark against the silver water. Waves broke hard against the rocks, but the sea itself was strangely restrained, as if even it respected the history of the place.

Another memory card filled with photos.

Rounding the Horn wasn’t dramatic in the way I had imagined for years. There was no raging storm, no screaming wind. Instead, there was a deep, quiet awareness of where we were. Of how many had come this way before, and how many never made it past this point.

Then, with a subtle turn of the ship, we pointed south.