Isla Hornas, Chile

Wednesday, January 10, 2001

Isla Hornas, Chile

Sunlight streams through my tiny porthole, a marked improvement over last night’s blue water washing machine view. The seasick rejoin the living and after a light breakfast to settle stomachs , we’re off again to Isla de Hornas, Cape Horn.

Jagged spires stagger away from the islands, all steep cliffs and a thin layer of green covering all but the most vertical surfaces. Rain storms whip through and we make up to 8.5 knots, crashing into waves and sending up white curtains of spray.

Chile maintains a small border and Coast Guard station atop the rocks there, and every shirking gale and howling storms gets a clear shot at the ramshackle lighthouse and low cabins.

We climb the stairs, dutifully pet the dog and wander to the station for an oversized passport stamp and overpriced postcards. A young family of Chileans spend a lonely year here before transfer to a cushy post in a more accommodating climate.

At least for a few minutes, the Horn seems altogether pleasant, with the Jennifer Sepulveda-Quintrileo, the couple’s two-year-old, running through the tall grass. A passing gust nearly bowls her off her feet.

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INTRODUCTION

For much of my adult life, I have been lucky enough to get paid doing the things I love most. My work as a itinerant travel and wildlife photographer has sent me around the world and across all seven continents.

Over the last two decades, I have had ample opportunity to appreciate the absurdities of life on the road, having once spent 27 memorable hours during my first trip to Kenya digging a bogged safari truck out using only a sauce pan. In addition to my work in Africa, I have traveled extensively in Alaska, Australia, Antarctica and Asia.

I hope to work my way through the rest of the alphabet in a timely fashion.

Each year, I spend five or six months on the road. Along the way, I try to make time to scribble something in my notebooks. More often than not, it’s about whatever mishap has befallen me on any particular day. This collection offers a random sample from those journals, notebooks and emails.