Last updated: 12 February, 1998
"High pressures have followed us around the southern sea on this trip, making us all believe that the tales of the Drake Passage and its raging storms are inventions intended to discourage potential visitors. Our final day across the notorious passage from south to north should have exposed us to broadside swells. Instead we still have tailing seas and slight waves. Packets of Dramamine lie ignored in the nooks and crannies of our baggage. We hang nearly upside down over the bow of the ship watching porpoises riding the bow wave, our ride sufficiently smooth that we have no fear of losing our balance and falling.
As the afternoon progresses Cape Horn hoves into view, unobscured by wind or wave. The waters here are as placid as those of the Beagle Channel. Darwin, who suffered greatly from seasickness as the Beagle traversed these waters, is probably watching from on high with envy.
We have experienced perhaps the most uneventful rounding of the fabled Cape ever recorded."
- Roy Beckemeyer writ this most unusual record on February the 4th,
the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-eight.