Wed
4 Apr
2018

Admit­ted­ly, the final leg of our voya­ge was not what we had been hoping for. We had pic­tu­red some beau­tiful sai­ling in sub­tro­pi­cal­ly calm waters and a nice final stop on the island of Chi­loë. Ins­tead, we got one last bea­ting by the wea­ther. Winds around 30 knots (40 in gusts) and straight on the nose, of cour­se. The Gol­fo de Cor­co­va­do did not give us wha­les and views of vol­ca­noes, but mari­ti­me Rock’n’roll in shape of some rough seas, a lot of rain and speed that went down to 1.8 knots at time. Not quite what we wan­ted. (Adden­dum: in Puer­to Montt, the crew found parts of ropes and fishing nets on the pro­pell­or. That explains of cour­se why we made so poor speed when the wind was against us!)

Things impro­ved signi­fi­cant­ly during the last mor­ning: the wind chan­ged direc­tion and thus its cha­rac­ter from a pain in the rear to the sai­ling wind that we had been hoping for. The sea cal­med down, and we picked up speed to make 7-8 knots bet­ween Chi­loë and some smal­ler islands towards Puer­to Montt. After the wild, lonely land­scapes fur­ther south, it see­med pret­ty civi­li­sed around here: many smal­ler and some lar­ger sett­le­ments on the islands and more ships than we had seen befo­re in many days. Pen­gu­ins, peli­cans and sea lions were with us on the last miles.

We went along­side in Puer­to Montt only a few hours behind sche­du­le, and a real­ly gre­at, beau­tiful and inte­res­t­ing voya­ge came to an end, which was duly cele­bra­ted with fresh apple cake made by Julie. I am pret­ty sure that I speak for ever­y­bo­dy when I say that we would have loved to con­ti­nue tog­e­ther. The­re are so many more Cale­tas in Pata­go­nia …

But as it was, we said good­bye and fare­well. Many big thanks to all fel­low tra­vel­lers, to skipper/boat owner Heinz Wut­sch­ke and his good crew, Astrid, Julie and Piet for many stun­ning days on the back side of Pata­go­nia!

Gal­lery – Gol­fo Cor­co­va­do to Puer­to Montt

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

No doubt, this is to be con­tin­ued. In 2019, we have alre­a­dy got Score­s­by­sund in east Green­land with Anne-Mar­ga­re­tha on the sche­du­le. The­re has alre­a­dy been tal­king about other parts of east Green­land or Lofo­ten for the future, and I am sure this is not to be the last time in Pata­go­nia! It was far too beau­tiful for that, and the­re are so many more places to dis­co­ver in this stun­ning part of the glo­be.

So this is the end of my polar blog for the moment. The aut­hor will con­ti­nue his arc­tic adven­tures for a cou­ple of weeks in the book wri­ting fac­to­ry (yes, the­re are pro­jects going on). Thanks for rea­ding so far, and see you again when the arc­tic sea­son starts with Anti­gua!

Mon
2 Apr
2018

As if a sun­set on a calm fjord bet­ween many islands was not alre­a­dy a show of per­fect beau­ty. How does it get even more beau­tiful? Dol­phins.

On Isla Canal, we inven­ted the term „three-dimen­sio­nal hiking“ becau­se we were moving in the den­se forest somehow in a dif­fu­se matrix of bran­ches, bam­boo, rot­ten roots and sur­pri­sin­gly lar­ge cavi­ties bet­ween them. A very gra­du­al tran­si­ti­on from the most­ly air-fil­led space at the top and the more or less solid bot­tom. Often less solid.

Good fun!

Gal­lery – Canal Mora­le­do & Isla Canal – 01/02 April 2018

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

Accor­ding to the wea­ther fore­cast, we should now have had love­ly sai­ling wind from the south. In rea­li­ty, we are crossing up north against the wind and some rather rough seas. Still 180 nau­ti­cal miles to go to Puer­to Montt. We will see.

Sun
1 Apr
2018

Hap­py Eas­ter! The anchor went down late night. Which was gre­at, we had been sai­ling for quite some time sin­ce we had left our ancho­ra­ge at the Isla Jung­frau­en. And it was good to get to walk again on solid ground! Natu­re has almost got a tro­pi­cal aspect, it is so green and lush, big fern trees are gro­wing ever­y­whe­re like palm trees, and par­rots are making a lot of noi­se.

Our own Eas­ter bak­ery at work

A second landing takes us to some hot springs, the Ter­mas de Pun­ta Perez. It used to be an unknown place in the wil­der­ness until a few years ago, now tou­rism has left obvious traces. We are obvious­ly get­ting into more civi­li­zed waters again, Puer­to Aysén is not too far away and tou­rist boats and fishing ves­sels are crow­ding the waters.

The forest in Seno Aysén looks almost tro­pi­cal

The hot springs do not form natu­ral hot pools. It is hot ground­wa­ter coming out bet­ween the stones, so you can burn your bum as you sit in shal­low water while your feet get fro­zen at the same time. It is not real­ly that tro­pi­cal yet!

Real­ly hot Hot Springs

Gal­lery – Seno Aysén – 01 April 2018

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