Rounding Cape Horn, A Photo Story

By Jon Van Loon

Long Description
This book is a photo story of a trip in which we embarked at Valparaiso Chile, made our way down the Chilean coast line around the often treacherous Cape Horn, thence up the Argentinean coast disembarking at Buenos Aries. Of course stories are legion of ships encountering horrific storms in the fifties latitudes of the Cape Horn region. Countless losses of ship and cargo had been recorded here in the days of the Clipper Ships forced to sail this route before the advent of the Panama Canal. Our calamity materialized in the leg of our journey soon after we had rounded the Cape. In what turned out to be our ignorance and complacency we had no such fears. Our ship, a relatively large and powerful cruise ship with 4 or 5 decks, seemed well suited for stormy weather so it was hard to believe the calamity that lay in wait for us in unanticipated Southern Atlantic Ocean tempestuous conditions. The story has many highlights other than the sight of Cape Horn under several weather conditions. These include a volcanic mountain, a massive bright blue glacier, shipwrecks particularly in the Falkland Islands and finally how we weathered a disastrous hurricane that damaged our ship.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jon Van Loon
• Release date: May 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463762837

Jon Van Loon

My life has been complicated by 3 factors. A severe learning disability and a bipolar condition could have easily doomed me to a troubled, non productive existence. However a prodigious unrelenting manic drive was the burr under my saddle that propelled me to unexpected achievement in academia. Of interest here in this regard was that developments in my laboratory at the University of Toronto lead me to opportunities to work, teach and live for short periods in many locations on the 6 continents over a 25 year period. During these intervals, I chose to live in local category accommodation thus maximizing my exposure and participation in parochial experiences. In contrast to the calamitous relationships dogging present world interrelationships my experiences were entirely welcoming and solicitous.I was born in Hamilton Ontario Canada. My interests include jogging and other fitness programs having run in and completed 4 marathons together with numerous 5, 10 and 20 km events. My prowess in sport to say the least was very average. Non-the-less I participated in and then later coached ice hockey both in Canada and Australia. My reward for all this activity is that I have a healthy cardiovascular system and have endured 3 knee replacement operations. Most particularly I have a passion for work related to environmental concerns. In this regard I have 120 peer reviewed research papers in Environmental Chemistry, one of which nearly landing me in jail.

Book preview

Prologue

Despite our frantic efforts to clean it up, broken glass kept menacingly reappearing from under the bath tub, thwarting our desperation to reach the toilet. Water thrown from the raging sea streamed constantly through the broken balcony door across our cabin floor and into the passage way.  This was the last passage around the Horn that season. The present cruise had been shoehorned in just before the hazardous southern hemisphere fall and winter weather perennially took hold.  But no one bothered to inform the weather Gods it was too early to begin the miserable weather onslaught we were to ultimately experience.

The Incredible Adventure

Our exploits began after we landed in Santiago Chile, after a flight from Toronto. Santiago being landlocked, we had to travel to the port city of Valparaiso in order to board our cruise liner. This was a very pleasant trip but in many ways scenery was not unlike that in Southern Ontario.

Of course stories are legion of ships encountering horrific storms in the fifties latitudes of the Cape Horn region.  Countless losses of ship and cargo had been recorded here in