I’m in Longyearbyen, Svalbard – 1,200 km north of the Arctic Circle. We are about to set off on a two-day expedition to the abandoned Russian mining town of Pyramiden. With all the grace of a beached walrus, I throw my leg over the snowmobile for the very first time. Ahead of me lie 200 kms of Svalbard tundra. I can’t help wondering if this time I really have bitten off more than I can chew!

Two days before I’m due to land in Iceland, a brief email from the skipper simply reads:

“There’s a storm brewing in the Denmark Strait, the forecast from Sunday to Tuesday is crap, so to get ahead of it, we’re leaving 24 hours early.”

Panic! Change flights. Cancel meetings. Pack bags. Kiss wife.

Cape Horn is a large headland by the sea, a bit like Bray Head really, perhaps a bit taller – but it’s its location at the very southern tip of South America that makes it such a special place. This is where the mighty Pacific and Atlantic oceans meet. At 56° south, there is no land to the east or west of Cape Horn anywhere around the globe – the next nearest landmass is Antarctica, 600 miles further south across the Drake Passage. In this stretch of turbulent ocean, storms are stronger and waves are bigger than anywhere else on Earth.