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March 1, 2006 Wednesday After two days of travel from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere, I arrived in Puerto Williams via a Twin Otter bush plane with a 20-passenger capacity from Punta Arenas this morning. I checked into the Corion guest house on Ricardo Maragano Street, took a walk around the village and came back for a nap. While resting, a visitor came to the guest house and he was talking to Jeanette, the owner of the guest house, in broken Spanish with an Australian accent. It turned out to be Stephen Wilkins, the captain of Pelagic Australis. He was checking to see if I had arrived in Puerto Williams. Stephen invited me to come down to the boat later in the day for a drink. As I walked on the sidewalk along the dusty dirt road past the memorial park, a horse wandered freely through the streets. I stepped over the horse biscuits left on the side walk and headed down the steep hill to the cove where the boats were secured alongside the derelict naval vessel Micalvi that had been converted to a yacht club. On board Pelagic Australis, Stephen introduced me to Debbie Lewis, the first mate from New Zealand, Tyler Sweeney, the chef from Colorado, and Alex Cottle, who arrived a few days earlier from Antarctica from 3 months of field duty for the British Antarctic Survey.Evohe, an 82’ Defrere designed steel ketch was rafted outside of Pelagic Australis. The nine charter guests, four guides from Adventure Consultants, the captain and four crew had just returned from a three-week adventure climbing some of the highest peaks on the Antarctic Peninsula and they were having a BBQ on the aft deck of the Micalvi. I was invited to the BBQ and met many of the climbers and enjoyed their stories of adventure. It turned out to be a long night for some with many bottles of wine, beer and champagne piled up next to the BBQ pit in the morning. March 2 and 3, 2006 Thursday and Friday The Dientes Circuit leads around the jagged pinnacles known as Los Dientes de Navarinos. The full trek takes four to five days. Stephen said he knew someone that completed the entire circuit in 9 hours so I started out thinking it was going to be a walk in the park. The trek was muy bonito pero muy difficil. My multipurpose duffle back pack needs some modifications. I couldn’t figure out how to shift the weight from my shoulders to my hips and the pack was shifting around a lot knocking me off balance. Not too good when you are standing on the edge of a very steep mountain with the wind blowing a gale. After several hours of hiking straight up a very steep mountain and traversing along the edge, I final couldn’t go any further, so I found the flattest spot I could which wasn’t very flat at all and braced myself against a tree and a bush so I wouldn’t roll off the mountain and bivied for the night. Instead of continuing on around the jagged peaks, I took the Valle Robalo back to Puerto Williams. There were lots of bogs in the lowland covering my boots with muck, but beautiful scenery- mountain lakes, bubbling brooks and a roaring river with rapids and waterfalls. When I got back to the Hostel Coiron, I took a hot shower and four Ibuprofens. --Chua for now, Gale March 7, 2006 Tuesday I met one of my fellow crew members, Kevin Roche, at the Refugio Corion guest house at breakfast this morning. Kevin told me he used to keep his 54’ Mason sailboat in Back Creek in Annapolis (my hometown) for several years prior to moving to California. Small world. After dropping off my gear on the boat, I went for a hike to Cerro Bandero, a popular day hike to the top of a 600-meter mountain with a spectacular view of the Beagle Channel and Puerto Williams. When arriving back at the boat at 5 p.m., all the other guest crew had arrived: Jim Seddon and Ian Gibson from North Wales, Helen Witts from Jersey in the Channel Islands, Jim Boulter from Hollywood, California, Joe Murray from Tiburon, California and Bob Clelland from La Jolla, California. Stephen gave us the option to stay alongside the Micalvi to have a few drinks at the navy vessel turned yacht club or to motor to an anchorage about 20 miles closer to Cape Horn. The majority vote chose to set sail after a safety briefing. We arrived in the anchorage after dark which was not too much of a problem but after lowering the zodie in the water to carry the mooring lines ashore, the zodie made contact with a sharp rock or mussel cutting a two-inch hole in the rubber bow tube. Ian was in the bow and put his hand over the hole to keep it from losing all the air. The dinghy crew managed to get all the lines ashore without sinking the boat. Pelagic Australis is equipped with another inflatable and outboard for such mishaps. After getting the sinking zodie back on board, we indulged in a feast of roasted stuffed chickens and vegetables. Jim S serenaded us with sea shanties after dinner. --OX Gale March 8, 2006 Wednesday We had a great sail today from Caleta Felipe to Maxell Cove in a breeze with gusts up to 40 knots. We are anchored about 10 miles from Cape Horn. Tomorrow we are planning to go ashore at Cape Horn. We are having lots of laughs. --OX Gale
March 9, 2006 Thursday
We encountered a squall while approaching Cape Horn with gusts over 50 knots. The seas were about 6 to 8 feet with some spray coming over the deck. After the squall passed, the wind died down to about 25 knots astern as we turned the corner to round the famous rock. We anchored in the lee of the land in a flat calm anchorage and all the crew went ashore to visit the island of Cabo de Hornos and to get our passports stamped. A new house was being built for the lighthouse keeper.
Instead of the normal Navy officer and his family, there were 20 men living on the island to do the construction. Maurizio, a navy officer from Puerto Williams, gave us the grand tour. This will be our furthest point south at 55 57.6 S 67 13.4 W. We sailed back up to Caleta Felipe on Isla Navarino and tied up to our favorite fisherman’s tire secured to the rocky hillside for the evening. After dinner, Jim S and Ian entertained us with games of ibbly dibbly and hovering bunnies. Yes, the games were as silly as they sound. --OX Gale
March 10, 2006 Thursday
We are back in the Beagle Channel. According to the itinerary, this is the day we are to go to Caleta Peron on Isla Hoste to visit Estancia Canasaka and the Martinez family. Here we are to kill a sheep and have an asado (BBQ) the next day and put out the fish net for mullet. Instead, we are anchored in a caleta on the south east side of Isla Gordon and we go for an afternoon hike. Alex and Ian set off up the mountain as if they are being chased by a pack of wild dogs. Some of the others in the group take a more leisurely walk and just breathe in the beauty of the surroundings while the rest of the group get down to the business of building a fire using the boy scout method; first you make a bonfire sized fire pit and then you pour petrol over the wet wood to get a good hot blaze going. Jim S was appalled that his fellow yachtsmen would resort to this. Jim S was planning to use his survival skills to build the fire without using matches. --OX Gale March 11, 2006 Friday
Spectacular scenery. Alex, Jim S, Ian, Tyler and I trekked up the side of the mountain to a glacier lake. Beautiful waterfalls, turquoise glacier lake and massive granite rock wall with a blue-ice glacier clinging to the granite. The weather started closing in on us while we were near the top. The wind started to blow and a big black cloud was heading our way.
Alex hustled us off the top over several ridges intersecting our path near the bottom of the mountain saving us lots of time. As soon as we made it down and got back on the boat, the black cloud let loose with torrential rain. --OX Gale March 12, Sunday We are drifting around in front of a the eastern arm of the PIA Glacier watching big chunks of ice calve off. It sounds like gunshot when the ice hits the water. Pretty powerful.
Later in the day, we anchor near the western arm of the PIA Glacier. The anchorage is already occupied by Charlie Porter’s steel ketch, Ocean Tramp. Charlie is a well known character in these parts taking scientists and film crews to the glaciers to study their movement and size. The PIA Glacier has been particularly active in the last couple of days. Alex, Joe, Jim S and I take a dinghy ride to the glacier and climbed along the moraine on the western side. The hill side looks like a big earth mover has just been there with dirt and rocks freshly turned over and pushed aside. Brenda Hall, a geology professor from the University of Maine, is on board the Ocean Tramp to map and date moraines at 10 key glaciers in the Cordillera Darwin in conjunction with the Patagonia Research Foundation. Juan, the first mate from Puerto Montt, Chile is the only other crew aboard the boat. They all joined us for dinner and Charlie dominates the conversation answering questions about the glaciers. Moraines are created when the glacier pushes or carries along rocky debris as it moves. Dark bands of debris are visible on top and along the edges of glaciers. Medial moraines run down the middle of a glacier, lateral moraines along the sides, and terminal moraines are found at the terminus, or face, of a glacier. Sometimes one glacier flows into another, also creating moraines. Glaciers reflect climate change and by taking core samples in the ice, much can be learned about the climate and how it has changed over several thousand years. --OX Gale March 15, 2006 Wednesday One of the charter guests just received a photo via email from his son, huge attachment; it is going to cost him about $300. We have been doing a lot of motoring the last couple of days -- visiting more glaciers and heading west thru the Beagle Channel. The weather has been very mild. Today it is a bit windier, but 40 to 50 knots of wind is nothing to Pelagic Australis. The boat just plows right through. --OX Gale March 17, 2006 Friday Happy St. Patrick’s Day. We are sailing through the Canal Brecknock. The wind is out of the SW and almost dead astern. t’s blowing 40 to 50 knots and it is a lot colder. There is new snow on the mountain tops. We just visited another glacier and now we are headed to our anchorage for the night. --OX Gale March 18, 2006 Saturday
We are anchored in Bahia Quenta at the base of Mt. Sarmiento. It has been raining all day at lower elevations and snowing on the peaks. Alex, Jim S., Ian and I set out to climb up to the top of one of the rocky peaks and along the ridge. At the lower elevations, we were climbing through a jungle of short twisted trees, vines and bushes with spongy wet ground. As we get above the tree line, patches of snow and ice cover the mossy tundra and a few hundred feet higher we are in snow covered granite. The snow is coming down in huge flakes. The wind is starting to blow and the visibility is poor so we head back down instead of climbing along the ridge. --OX Gale March 20, 2006 Monday We arrived in Punta Arenas yesterday, one day early. Stephen was playing it safe for an approaching low pressure system that was building and was suppose to be on us early this morning. So far, it has not come in but GRIB files are showing a good blow for the next three days. The Sky Eye antenna picks up the cloud coverage via satellite and is showing a storm that looks like Halley’s Comet, a tight clockwise swirl with a tail trailing behind. We spent most of this morning cleaning up the boat and this afternoon we are going on a tour of the Gould, an American research vessel that is heading to Antarctica tomorrow. A couple of the guest crew got off the boat and checked into a hotel as soon as we hit the dock yesterday. They were looking forward to taking a hot shower with fresh water and sleeping in a dry bed. The condensation from the skylights dripped down on their bunks giving them a big wet spot to sleep in. We have been using salt water for washing for over a week. The boat does not have a watermaker. I’m happy to say that my bunk has been dry the entire trip and, on Debbie’s recommendation, I snuck a kettle of fresh water to rinse with after my saltwater showers. We had a really nice crew dinner ashore last night at La Luna. The restaurant has a fully set table and chairs mounted to the ceiling with a placard that says, "Welcome to the bottom of the world." A couple of the guest crew had a few too many Pisco Sours and they were really hurting this morning. A few of us found a night club still rocking at 3 a.m. Ian seemed to be more intoxicated in the morning than he was in the evening and decided to do a full strip tease on the fan tail of the boat. His exhibitionism was hardly noticed on the commercial wharf where we were dock with only research vessels, tug boats and fishing vessels. The compound has a guarded gate so only the crews on the vessels are allowed on the wharf. March 23, 2006 Thursday I’m at the CoffeeNet Cafe in Punta Arenas checking email messages one more time before heading to the airport in a few hours for my marathon flight to Baltimore, Maryland -- 24 hours door to door. I will be home Friday afternoon. Tierra del Fuego is an incredibly beautiful place and the Chileans are very friendly. My sensory receptors have been on over-load taking in all the sights, sounds, and aromas. My confidence for sailing in this part of the world is much improved. Although, at times while sailing, I wasn’t sure I was making the best use of my time, when I reflect back, I really did take in quite a lot of information. The weather was a lot tamer than I expected. We motored most of the way through the Beagle Channel because the wind tends to funnel through the channel so it is either on the nose or dead down wind. Pelagic Australis plowed through 50-knot head winds and short choppy seas like a calm day on Long Island Sound. We were in an anchorage every night tied up to the trees and had lots of opportunity to go ashore to hike the bogs and spiky granite peaks. The hiking was more challenging for me than the sailing. I really loved it. We scurried up some pretty incredible mountains. The vistas from the top were absolutely stunning. I just said good bye to Alex and Tyler as they were walking to the bus station to go trekking in the Fitz Roy. We had so much fun, I was wishing I was going with them. --Chua, Gale PelagicOh the noble ship Pelagic Chorus She sails among the glaciers The first mate’s name is Debbie The third mate’s name is Tyler Oh there’s Bob, Joe and Kevin And now we come to Ian And as for the baird of this Pelagic tale.
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Gale
Browning Ocean Racing LLC
PO Box 4061
Annapolis, MD 21403