From the Field: Bill Buck in Cape Horn 2014, Part 4
Posted in Travelogue on March 14, 2014 by Bill Buck
William R. Buck, Ph.D., is the Mary Flagler Cary Curator of Botany at The New York Botanical Garden. Every January for the last three years, Dr. Buck, a moss specialist, and a team of colleagues have journeyed to the Cape Horn region at the southern tip of South America, to document the area’s rich diversity of mosses and search for new species.
January 12, 2014; Isla Hoste, Bahía Orange, Caleta Duck, Chile (55°32’S, 68°05.5’W)
We left Coloane a bit before 8 p.m. yesterday evening. Navigating down the southwest arm of the Beagle Channel, we got our first opportunity to see the string of glaciers that crown the rugged peaks. Fortunately, the waters were calm and the temperature relatively warm, keeping many of us on deck to enjoy the scenery in the dimming light.
We awoke shortly before 7 a.m. when the ship’s engines finally shut down. Coming out onto the deck, we were greeted by Bahía Orange, the site where an early French expedition had stopped. We were anchored in Caleta Misión, the exact place where the French had sought shelter over a century ago. Although the sky was lightly spitting, the day promised pleasant weather, at least according to the rising barometer. I hoped this would mean we could get back to our original itinerary and head out to Isla Hermite, but the northeastern direction of the wind meant the seas would be rough. The captain, Ernesto, and I went over the maps to determine where we should go in the coming days.