Weekend Write-In Story Collection

Cape Horn Ring

In 500 words, imagine what happens when a ritual is disrupted. Written for the Weekend Writing prompt "Ritual", 15-17 January 2016.

Some thoughts from after we had rounded Cape Horn east to west, then west to east four years ago.

The Ritual

As I researched the discovery of the Cape Horn, I found that in the early seventeenth century the Dutch East India Company had a monopoly on all Dutch trade with the Orient via the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of Magellan, then the only known sea routes. Seeking an alternate route, Isaac Le Maire a prosperous Amsterdam merchant and Willem Schouten, a ship's master of the town of Hoorn formed a joint venture with some merchants of Hoorn. Two ships, the 360-ton Eendracht and the 110-ton Hoorn left Holland in June 1615. Hoorn was destroyed by fire while burning off barnacles on the Argentine coast, and the expedition continued in Eendracht.

In late January 1616 Eendracht sailed southward of known land, and later recorded: In the evening 25 January 1616 the winde was South West, and that night wee went South with great waves or billowes out of the southwest, and very blew water, whereby wee judged, and held for certaine that ... it was the great South Sea, whereat we were exceeding glad to thinke that wee had discovered a way, which until that time, was unknowne to men, as afterward wee found it to be true. ... on 29 January 1616 we saw land againe lying north west and north northwest from us, which was the land that lay South from the straights of Magelan which reacheth Southward, all high hillie lande covered over with snow, ending with a sharpe point which wee called Kaap Hoorn.

Kaap Hoorn was named after the Dutch town of Hoorn. Its name was later corrupted by the English to Cape Horn because of its shape, and in Chile, it's charted as Cabo de Hornos (Cape of Ovens).

When it was discovered, the Horn was thought to be the southernmost point of Tierra del Fuego. The highly unpredictable violence of the area's weather and sea conditions made exploration difficult, and it wasn't until 1624 that it was realised that Kaap Hoorn was on a separate island. Nearly two centuries of use as a major shipping route and hundreds of shipwrecks would pass before the discovery of Antarctica, only four hundred miles south.

A sailor who had rounded the Horn was entitled to wear a gold loop in his left ear, the one toward the Horn on a typical east-about passage. The ritual also entitled showing off a tattoo of a full-rigged ship and dining with one foot on the table.

Edi said absolutely not to the foot on the table, she didn't like the idea of a tattoo, but she thought that the earring might be okay. We hauled out our sophisticated surgical equipment for the piercing: a sail stitching awl, a wine cork and a rubber mallet. With quick work, I had a ring in my ear.

To reduce the risk frightening the crew with the sight of blood, I wore my red jacket. To reduce the risk of infection and the possibility of pain, I resorted to a more modern ritual: Photoshop.