I wakened this morning with the realisation that I hadn’t ticked the little box at the bottom of the room service form and so they wouldn’t know when to deliver our morning cuppa.  I’d just commented this to Craig  and was about to pick up the phone to call them when they called me!  So they sent it straight up – lucky break. 

We had our usual breakfast in Horizon sitting with a couple from Edmonton who’d we’d met at the Meet and Greet.  Once again we got a few excellent pointers and recommendations for our trip to Seattle and Canada later this year.  We headed from there straight to the theatre where a couple were giving a talk on their bike ride from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego – the full length of America from the very north to the very south.  They were both great speakers and it was a fascinating talk complete with slides and lots of little anecdotes.  If you’d like to know more they have a blog at www.welostthemap.com .  I haven’t checked it our yet but if they write as well as they talk it should be a great read

We came back to the cabin for a spell after that and Craig had a wee rest – he’s coming good but didn’t have a real lot of energy and since it was a sea day it didn’t matter.   I was immersed in a good book so happy to carry on with that.  We had a late lunch around 2pm and spent the next hour or so sitting up in Horizon watching the seas become rougher and rougher.  The captain announced that we had 85 knot winds (130km an hour) but that there was no need to concern – “it was just another day in the office for him” .  However this meant he had to wait and see how conditions were when we got to Cape Horn.  His plan weather permitting was to stop off the lighthouse and turn 360o so both port and starboard got a good view. 

We came back to the cabin and rugged up and headed up on deck – the wind was ferocious.  At one point I was going to go up to Deck 17 – we’d climbed the steps and I went to cross the open deck and realized if I carried on I would be blown over, so quickly got in the shelter of the wind again.  Then the rain started – almost like hailstones so we came back down and on to our balcony and then just to confound us the sun peeped through.  We saw the most beautiful double rainbow – don’t think my picture managed to capture the second one – but it was there.   And then we got clear views of the lighthouse and the little chapel beside it, which marks Cape Horn.  There may be some of you who remember Mr. Geography Smith (Miffy) at Balfron High.  For some reason I can clearly remember him talking about so many places in South America.  I didn’t particularly like geography but so many place names he talked about have stuck in my mind – Patagonia, Cape Horn, Montevideo, Valparaiso, Tierra del Fuego, the Roaring Forties, to name a few.  And I said to Craig – wee Anne Brown in 2^nd year high school never in her wildest dreams thought that one day she’d be rounding the Horn.  Isn’t life grand?

The captain was able to do the turn around and once we were in a bit of shelter the seas were much calmer.  He was able to sail right round the island and then we got even better views of the lighthouse and chapel from the south. 

It was formal night again so we got dressed in our finery and headed up to Crooners for a pre dinner drink and then had a lovely meal.  Mushroom pate then surf and turf (forgot the photo!) followed by Burnt rhubarb with nectarine icecream.   The burnt isn’t a misprint but it was beautiful – had a lovely sort of caramel flavor.  Our dinner companions tonight were a couple from Buderim on the Sunshine Coast – a retired civil engineer and his wife an accountant – still working but from home and only with long term clients, and a Swiss chef and his wife who’d spent 15 years with their own restaurant in Bermuda. 

We went for a nightcap in Crooners and then Craig headed up to bed.  I figured the double rainbow had been a sign of luck so popped down to the casino for a while.  I still had my stake money from last night and developed a strategy to make sure when I had a good win I didn’t fritter it away.  It worked well as did the rainbow luck and I tripled my money then had the good sense to come up to bed.