It is an alternative to the cold winters of our Northern Hemisphere. A visit to the Southern Hemisphere, circumnavigating the tip of South America, can be one of the most rewarding, fascinating and scenery-rich cruise itineraries I know.

Waves lashing the Horn?s granite cliffs arise from the meeting of three great oceans: Pacific, South Atlantic and Antarctic.

That confluence of restless waters creates a unique cauldron of conflicting winds, turbulent waves, squalls and showers, a micro-weather system like no other on Earth.

Cruise passengers bound for the Caribbean can pack simply bathing suit, sport shirts, shorts and sun hats. But selecting a wardrobe for a mid-winter passage around South America requires more judicious planning.

Even though our winter is their summer, that U-shaped voyage around the Horn carries one from tropical to cool and then back again to tropical weather.

We sailed from Miami to Valparaiso aboard Norwegian Cruise Line?s Norwegian Crown just before Christmas last year. Humidity prevailed through Panama?s fascinating canal and intensified crossing the equator.

But voyaging southward, past the parched, sandy coasts of Ecuador and Peru, the weather relented into spring warmth at the switchover port of Valparaiso, Chile.

Thus repositioned, we were sited and psyched to begin our crossing around the Horn, from Chilean west to Argentinean east. Two weeks later, we would disembark in humid Buenos Aires and fly home.

Then a replacement passenger load would repeat our passage in the opposite direction. Valparaiso/Buenos Aires pendulum continues through February.

Throughout our journey, the weather remained benign but changeable. Within one sample five-hour period, we sailed through hot, bright sunshine, sheets of rain, squally seas and fog.

On another occasion, I saw people in shirtsleeves photographing icebergs. The voyage?s only predictably chaotic weather occurs during the climactic passage ?round the Horn.

South from Valparaiso, first stop Puerto Montt is a useful port. Though wonderful excursions inland to Chilean national parks beckoned white-water rafting a specialty I found that my fellow passengers lingered most happily along street stalls near the pier where everything was for sale trinkets, ship models, dolls, rugs, belts, carving, jewellery and, most practical for us Cape Horners, Chilean sweaters, gloves, ponchos, hats, scarves, shawls and stoles.

This was alpaca country, the selection as bountiful as the prices were low. Rare was the passenger who did not buy something warm or colourful for the waters to come.

Share with me, for a moment, every cruise ship?s dual role. Though designed for crossing deep oceans, they are equally endearing as floating grandstands near shore, most especially the stunning coasts of Alaska, Norway, New Zealand, Greenland and, for us, South America.

The scenery throughout our itinerary was compelling, and the farther south we sailed, the more spectacular it became.

The passenger clothing barometer kept pace with our southbound progress. T-shirts segued to turtlenecks to flannel shirts to sweaters Chilean or otherwise to quilted parkas, gloves and scarves. Knitted watch caps or colourful South American headgear replaced baseball caps.

As far as Puerto Montt, glimpses of distant snow-covered mountains lurked inland beyond the shore?s green fields and forests.

At our next port, Puerto Chacabuco, we were ringed by steeply forested hills juxtaposed against snow-covered Andean peaks.

It all seemed curiously Swiss, and we enjoyed a cup of hot chocolate on the rustic veranda of the Sea Lion Hotel overlooking the vessel.

The moment we sailed at 5 p.m., was suddenly immersed within Chile?s remarkable fjords, the generic Norwegian name for deep inlets of the sea. A superb panorama enriched our passage throughout a long, sun-struck evening.

Forested cliffs, plunging down to the water, seemed close enough to touch. Then the channel widened and, to either side, the tree-lined slopes were topped by bald, rugged peaks, a foretaste of mountains to come.

One stunning sight was the summit of 10,000-foot Maca, completely shrouded in snow and burnished gold by the setting sun.

That hypnotic spectacle would continue, almost without interruption, for four days. Mountains, islands and shorelines unspooled to either side, enjoyed from a deckchair.

Not a house, dwelling or sign of human habitation was visible. Only the occasional wreck of a ship that had come to grief was seen rusting forlornly alongside the channel.

Every day was a photographer?s paradise, never more so than when, in the Beagle Channel, the captain diverted off-course for a cautious, close-up approach to the face of the Amalia glacier.

You know you are approaching a glacier because the water is littered with ice fragments growlers, brash ice or bergy bits, they are called that have recently calved from the glacial face.

The waters also turn milky, clouded by glacial silt. Venturing as close as possible to the glacier, slowed and stopped.

Confronted by that overpowering facade, passengers fell silent. Nothing is more awe-inspiring than a towering wall of incredibly blue ice, sloping down from the snow pack high above and thrusting into the very waters where our ship drifted.

At that time of year, daylight lasts until well after 10 p.m., so there is ample time, fitted in between pleasant shipboard rituals such as dining, evening entertainment or Argentinean tango lessons, to pop out on deck.

Some climbed up to the Top of the Crown, a lookout lounge high above the vessel, for a bewitching views as glided through that haunting twilight. Once darkness fell near midnight, the scenic parade continued without us. Predictably for the region, the following morning found us enveloped in impenetrable mist with nothing visible to either side.

We entered the Straits of Magellan that evening, a waterway named after Ferdinand Magellan, the 16th-century Portuguese navigator who first charted its course.

Two consecutive historic ports awaited us, Chile?s Punta Arenas (sandy point) and the day after, Ushuaia (oo-shwhy-a), Argentina?s southernmost city.

En route between the two, our vessel would slow down to disembark the Chilean pilot to port while embarking his Argentinean replacement to starboard.

Relations between the two neighbouring countries remain prickly; indeed, they were once sworn enemies.

The only thing they share without rancour is the generic, geographical name of Patagonia, which, whether Chile or Argentina, encompasses the continent?s southernmost quarter. Both ports are delightful for very different reasons. Punta Arenas is the more conventional of the two, with, amazingly, scarcely a mountain in sight.

Before the Panama Canal opened in 1914, it was a busy shipping and commercial centre for vessels trading between Atlantic and Pacific.

An hour?s bus ride takes one to the breeding ground of thousands of Magellanic penguins, who come ashore annually to inhabit well-used burrows and give birth to their young.

Today, Punta Arenas is a bustling, well-laid-out town surrounding the parklike Plaza de Armas, newly restored and landscaped. At its centre stands a heroic monument to Magellan with figures of two native Patagonians flanking its base.

The following day, after another epic, mountain-lined journey through more of the Beagle Channel, we tied up at the Argentinean city of Ushuaia, another jumping-off point for Antarctica. Unlike flat Punta Arenas, Ushuaia is crowded into steep foothills of snow-covered mountains.

Across the harbour, at the local airport, some passengers took off for a four-hour luncheon flight over portions of Antarctica, only 625 miles away.

Ushuaia is closer to the white continent than any other civilized land mass, including South Africa, Australia, New Zealand or even rival Punta Arenas. Additional catamaran excursion boats took other passengers into nearby waters for encounters with seals and sea lions.

Mountain-rimmed Ushuaia, with a population of 17,500, also radiates a strikingly Swiss flavour. Over our summer, their winter is forbidding and as much snow carpets the town as the peaks above. Because of the slippery, sloping streets they must navigate, Ushuaia vehicles are dented and dinged from chronically treacherous driving conditions. Nevertheless, local spirits are upbeat, characterised by the municipality?s jaunty slogan: ?Ushuaia, end of the world and beginning of everything.?

We sailed that night and, early next morning, everyone on board was up early to witness our long-anticipated passage around the Horn. It did not disappoint.

In the waters off South America?s tip Tierra del Fuego, the land of fire giant eastbound Pacific rollers that have swept uninterrupted around the globe create chaotic sea conditions as they conjoin with the South Atlantic and Antarctic oceans.

Contrary, baffling winds as well as rain showers create a savage, end-of-the-world turmoil, wind and wave conspiring to confusion. The topography ashore is as wild as the weather, a forbidding lunar landscape spiked with jagged, inhospitable peaks that tower above surf-lashed cliffs.

But once away into the South Atlantic, Cape Horn?s stormy conditions relented. Miraculously, skies turned blue, winds dropped and seas calmed.

We were temporarily forsaking South America?s coast for a 522-mile eastern diversion to Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands.

This isolated, mid-ocean archipelago was recaptured from invading Argentineans by a determined Margaret Thatcher 25 years ago, now an almost mandatory historic stop for cruise ships negotiating the Horn in either direction.

Some of our British and Argentinean fellow passengers were able to complete a poignant pilgrimage to the island?s military cemeteries, visiting the graves of their slain loved ones.

In addition to colonies of penguins, acres of rough grass support thriving herds of sheep. Indeed, Falkland Island wool is one of the best and certainly the least-expensive items for sale; everything else has been imported and is extremely pricey.

Port Stanley has no pier, so passengers must endure a sometimes bumpy tender ride to shore and back.

Occasionally, if afternoon gales blow up, passengers can be stranded ashore. Two weeks after our call, 900 passengers from a Holland-America vessel had to sleep in Port Stanley.

Since the islands boast only 100 hotel beds, most of those involuntary overnighters had to be accommodated in a government warehouse. Yet regardless, the Falkland Islands remain an irresistible and favoured destination.

One day before final disembarkation in Buenos Aires, we stopped at Montevideo, capital of Uruguay. Within a short walk of the pier is a huge, rusting barnlike structure called the Port Market.

The following day, we submitted to the ordeal of our 14-hour flight home to New York, those incredible mountains and fjords no more than an imperishable shipboard memory.

@rh18bold:IF YOU GO

offers two-week cruises around Cape Horn from mid-November through February. Prices recently quoted by Norwegian Cruise Line started from $1,743 per person (based on double occupancy) in an inside cabin and from $1,873 in an ocean-view cabin to $4,909 in the top suite, (800) 327-7030 or www.ncl.com. The same cruise started at $1,499 on two Internet travel sites, Expedia.com and VacationsToGo.com.