From the Field: Bill Buck in Cape Horn 2014, Part 9
Posted in Travelogue on April 18, 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 20, 2014; Puerto Maxwell, Isla Hermite, Chile (55°48’S, 67°32’W)
Last night we stayed at Caleta de Los Ríos on the south coast of Isla Wollaston (55°47.5’S, 67°20.5’W). To sea novices like us, it didn’t appear any better than Caleta St. Martin, which we had just left behind. This is why we hire an experienced crew. By the time we reached port, the wind had picked up considerably. We tied up next to another fishing boat that was already in the harbor. The ships’ crews knew each other and promptly went visiting.
The wind continued. I couldn’t be sure without an anemometer, but from growing up in Florida I believed we were experiencing hurricane-force winds of over 75 mph. Then the rain started, blowing in horizontal sheets. I was mesmerized by the force of it all, and despite dropping temperatures I couldn’t bring myself to go inside.
