Pen­in­su­la Zach – 22 March 2018

Thu
22 Mar
2018

After seve­ral hours sai­ling nor­thwards in Canal Smyth, the wind picked up bey­ond 50 knots, straight on the nose, of cour­se. After criss-crossing a few miles and gai­ning not­hing but cha­os on the gal­ley, we gave up and went rather into a love­ly bay to anchor. A small pod of dol­phins (Dus­ky, pro­ba­b­ly) accom­pa­nied us on the way into the bay, and once the­re, we were wel­co­med by a curious Mari­ne otter. A very fri­end­ly place!

A Mari­ne otter wel­co­mes us near the Pen­in­su­la Zach

And it did pro­vi­de the shel­ter that we wan­ted. Calm waters and no wind, except from some occa­sio­nal gus­ting. We wai­ted for a strong rain show­er to pass through and then we went out to explo­re the area a bit. The name is pro­mi­sing: Pen­in­su­la Zach is named after Wolf­gang Zach, the mas­ter car­pen­ter in Lon­gye­ar­by­en who is buil­ding tho­se gre­at pic­tu­re frames from Spits­ber­gen drift­wood of which we had a few on offer last year (and we will have some more again later this year … ) so, a pro­mi­sing place! We were curious what Pen­in­su­la Zach would have to offer, but it had to be good any­way.

We were not to be dis­ap­poin­ted. Pen­in­su­la Zach is almost an island. Our anchor bay is sepa­ra­ted from the bay on the other side by just 200 meters of dry land (it was actual­ly pret­ty wet). It is a walk of ten minu­tes befo­re you reach a litt­le hill from which you have a view towards a bay in two oppo­si­te direc­tions. The remai­ning direc­tions are occup­pied by moun­ta­ins. A stun­ning pan­ora­ma!

The pan­ora­ma over the Pen­in­su­la Zach was worth the short but wet walk

The coas­tal low­lands were love­ly with its low forest – less den­se than else­whe­re – and wet­lands, but we went a bit fur­ther. From an ele­va­ted per­spec­ti­ve, the views were even bet­ter. The view to the sou­the­ast was towards a wide-open val­ley with a river, lakes and a lot of wet­land are­as. The sun sent a bright beam down onto this land­scape of water.

Stun­ning!

Gal­lery – Pen­in­su­la Zach – 22 March 2018

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

Then it star­ted to rain again, and we made sure we were back on board in time for the Piet-show (the dai­ly mas­ter­pie­ces of Piet, our cook).

… by the way: Pen­in­su­la Zach was named after Franz von Zach, a Hun­ga­ri­an astro­no­mer who joi­n­ed the famous Bea­gle with Cap­tain Fitz­roy on the first expe­di­ti­on, from 1831 to 1836 (Dar­win was on the second expe­di­ti­on).

Dol­phins accom­pa­nied us on our way into the bay of Pen­in­su­la Zach