A cruise ship at Cape Horn
January 26, 2010 – Puerto Williams, Chile
By Dr. David Treadway
Ocean Watch’s current crew includes Sailors for the Sea co-founder David Treadway, a veteran offshore sailor who’s cruised his Luders 33, Crow, to far horizons. David was aboard the boat for the recent rounding of Cape Horn, and has written the following story recording his impressions. Here’s David:
The cloud-enshrouded mountainous island loomed above as we sailed by on gray ominous seas. We were rounding Cape Horn, the wild dream and nightmare of generations of sailors. All of us on Ocean Watch were feeling a surge of pride and relief. We bowed our heads in reverent silence for the hardy sailors who have gone before us, those who made it and those who didn’t. And we celebrated with exuberant high fives, early morning beers shared with the Southern Ocean, and dramatic pictures of swooping albatross, the rugged cliffs and jagged rocks.
Then, emerging out of the haze around the edge of the island, a moving city came plowing toward us: one of the many cruise ships that now ply these waters providing the magic and wonder of Cabo de Hornos to thousands of people a week. This was a big one, probably 2,500 of our fellow adventurers preserving their memories with a snap of the finger just like us.
The sight of the cruise ship made some of us groan with dismay. It seemed somehow invasive. Our special moment of accomplishment after 18,000 miles of hard sailing felt diminished. I imagined it might be like climbing Everest and discovering at the summit tourists disembarking from a recently built tramway.
Mark Schrader, our captain, recalled that – when he came to this part of the world just twenty seven years ago – the Patagonian town of Puerto Williams turned out in their Sunday best to visit him on the boat. The village had seen only a couple of hearty sailors before. Now the southernmost town in the world had a burgeoning tourist industry.
David Rockefeller, the founder of Sailors for the Sea and temporary crew member, had spoken of the complexity of preserving nature and wilderness while opening access to more than the privileged few. How can we expect people to truly appreciate the delicate nature of our planet if we don’t encourage people to experience it directly? Not every one has the time, the skills, or the resources to adventure at sea the “hard way.” Yet the influx of people and ships potentially brings pollution and even destruction of fragile ecosystems.
We on Ocean Watch conceived this circumnavigation of the Americas to draw attention to how our oceans and peoples are woven together, from Herschel Island in the Northwest Passage to Herschel Island near Cape Horn. As David Rockefeller has called it, “One island, one ocean – the Isle of Americas.” Our oceans and our lands are at risk from over fishing, acidification, sea level rise, and coastal pollution. Most critically, the threat to our oceans imperils our very survival.
I am concerned as an educator about how we train ourselves and our children to treasure Planet Home and participate in nature without destroying it.
As the two Cape Horn ships passed, starboard to starboard, exchanging salvos of flashbulbs, our crew acknowledged the inevitable march of “progress” and our shared humanity with those on the ship who wanted their own taste of the “wild.” While appreciating that this new industry brings jobs to an historically impoverished part of the world, we worried that tourists were swamping the very wilderness they were coming to see. Just as the spreading population of the rest of the Americas has impacted its natural climate and ecosystems, this small patch of wilderness is being irrevocably changed by its new visitors.
As we left the Horn and the cruise ship in our wake, we hoped that all of us – sailors and passengers alike – would protect these ferocious and fragile islands and their surrounding waters.
- Dr. David Treadway with an introduction by Herb McCormick and a photograph by David Thoreson
*This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos
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