Essex rounded Cape Horn in January 1820 after a transit of five weeks, which was extremely slow. With this and the unsettling earlier incident, the crew began to talk of ill omens. Their spirits were temporarily lifted when Essex began the long spring and summer hunt in the warm waters of the South Pacific Ocean, traveling north along the western coast of South America up to Atacames, in what was then the Spanish-ruled territory of the Royal Audience of Quito (present-day Ecuador).
