15.02.07 – Refugio
Beautiful Puerto Santo Domingo. All alone in this wide flat bay, Machu Pichu peaks, constantly changing light and rushing waterfalls all around. And the usual glacier (ho hum) appearing only intermittently through the clouds. As…
Beautiful Puerto Santo Domingo. All alone in this wide flat bay, Machu Pichu peaks, constantly changing light and rushing waterfalls all around. And the usual glacier (ho hum) appearing only intermittently through the clouds. As…
Leaving Aguirre we turned north into the broad canal. Cheerful little fishing boats everywhere. With one of them we exchanged 4 beers for a big, slimy pink congrillo which made for a rubbery meal. Hobby-horsed…
A fine spinnaker run up Estero Elephantes in 20 kts of steady breeze took us north, back to Ensenda los Mogotes. A sparkling sunny day and a calm evening. After a gorgeous morning with best…
I’m lost for words. See the photos. Overwhelmed, we motored back to Romilio’s after an unforgettable day. At 47 south it is much colder. We spent an hour looking…
This part of Chile is wild, bold and beautiful beyond measure. Tainui is anchored in Bahia Sesquelan, waiting for good weather before going down into Laguna san Rafael. There is thick rainforest right to the…
Happy birthday Chris! It is grey and raining, with poor visibility. A snug anchorage in the mountains with Rousseau’s rainforest all around. Breakfast in bed, but the promised glacier gift will be a day or…
We continue down Canale Perez Sur. Narrower, less exposed and more interesting than Canale Moraleda, this channel seemed always to be generating contrary wind and tide. Much motoring. Today’s highlight was the sea lion colony…
We had a long day traversing Canale Perez Norte. The canales down here are a real contrast to Chiloe’s gentle pasturelands – rainforest to the water’s edge, mists, swirling tide races, craggy peaks and…
We entered this secure little bay after a lovely crossing of Golfo Corcovado. A crisp southwest breeze gave us 7 sunny knots and a fast trip despite having to buck some tide. When blue whales…
After that endless, grey and windy crossing from NZ I do feel a sort of accomplishment, but is it enough to justify the broken rib, the burn, the damp and the tedium? Now that we’re…
I’m now well adjusted to the cruising mode. Dave has gone off trekking with his esposa, and lovely Christine has finally arrived. She is settling in on board – this does not surprise me. We’re here…
With 4-5 knots of current we roared through Canal Chacao. There were occasional benign whirlpools but none of the terrors I had been led to expect (the Pilot says at springs wind against tide can…
Deepest coma. Up at 6 to a misty cold morning. Nothing moves, nothing gets spilt; I don’t have to hang on. Around the boat, like an Imax movie, we see green fields, cows, a lovely…
A fast, wet and quite uncomfortable arrival at dusk in a 30kt beam wind, awkward seas and dense fog. The landfall was a slightly apprehensive one for timid old me. Looking ghostly, forbidding and quite…
We’re 30 miles off Punta Corona. Close reaching in 25-30 kts of SSE breeze on a lumpy sea. The visibility is poor. It is fast, wet and uncomfortable. We’re often over-canvassed and with a beam…
Nothing now can dampen my spirits. Such is the power of our growing anticipation. At 4am I filmed our fast progress into the cloudless sunrise, knowing there is likely only to be one more sleep…
It is windy again today. 2 reefs and staysail. The opening paragraph of the Alexandria Quartet comes to mind and I wonder whether Durrell would survive re-reading after all these years. At 6.30 am, bang!…
In this warm horizontal environment, there is very little motion, but last night at the computer I felt a bit queasy as we rose and fell on a big, lazy southerly swell. As Martin Luther…
Today I read Banville’s book (“The Sea”) at one sitting. How could I not? After Faulks, he comes like spring after winter. Every page had me thinking of Chris, us, and wishing she were here…
How to write an email in the Southern Ocean? So little is really happening. What is memorable for David and me certainly isn’t, for the readership. And vice versa. Take Chris for example – working…
10.01.07 Dave thinks it’s Wednesday. We’re about 6 days from our landfall in Chile. 830 miles to go. I’m starting to get little frissants of excitement, like a child with Xmas approaching. It’s the biggest…
What do we do? I sleep a lot, read a bit, write some, and make excellent bread. The best alarm clock is a full bladder. Dave sleeps a lot, reads much more, cleans fastidiously (usually…
27 days out from NZ. An essential timelessness prevails, events confronting us in disjointed, oddly isolated fashion. Events familiar, predicted even, but each with no real relation to what went before, what comes after. Oddly,…
28 days ex Cook Strait. 1,298 miles to go. The first month was OK, but now it’s getting quite hard. We’re both over it. fresh food’s finished apart from a few spuds. Still, we should…
The speed with which weather systems roll past is remarkable. Weather comes rushing through, we get tossed about, get wet taking in sails, go below and dry off, take seasick pills, sleep, get up reluctantly…
Ribs? – now there’s something other than haemorrhoids to talk about! You can’t cough, laugh or move freely. Sit still and it doesn’t hurt, but just try fluttering an eyelid – blam! Rib ends grate…
Today I baked bread. By dint of circumstance my last 2 loaves were a success – light and well-risen. Dave on the other hand, had produced an inedible cinder block (my crew mate Dave –…
We did 180 miles yesterday with 1 reef, in a very steady 20 knot NNE breeze. Our best 24 hour run for a while. The wind is still ahead of the beam after 3 weeks.…
18 days at sea and no sign of madness. And today no sign of wind either. The barometer needle has been dabbed with araldite. We’re now between widely spaced isobars, edging up toward the horse…
The breeze came back today and we’ve been sliding quietly along. A gentle rhythm has been restored. Spirits have soared also, because we this morning we passed the halfway mark. I’m tinkering in the navigatorium…
Now 17 days out of NZ, we’re and about half way to Chile (3827s/13511w). Tainui is being her generous self – always coddling, forgiving our mistakes. No problems other than a snapped steering cable and…
Sunny. The wretched ESE headwind persists and the barometer is rising again. DMG yesterday was 110 miles! This is unbelievable. Still, we’re on course now. I am rediscovering Apollon Musagete. Call me old-fashioned, but I…
Today is Xmas day and 3 wonderful things happened – the sun came out, I stopped vomiting, and we opened Alex’s fruit pudding. What a trinity. What a feast – such unbelievable schmeck. We’ve been crashing…
We had a very near miss last night. A vital steel pin in the Aries came out. This meant that effectively the upper half of the vane gear was dismantled in situ, and suspended 4…
22.12.06 I just baked the 2 best loaves of bread in the known world. Photos have been taken. I’ve been sitting in the cockpit, well rugged up, fixing a pair of pliers and watching gadfly…
Our Monday position at 0325UTC is 4326S/16655W. A front has just passed over and the sun has come out. In 20 kts of westerly, 038M is our best course, although the rhumbline is 066M. The…
We’re in the roaring forties about 400 miles east of the Chatham Islands loping along at about 6 knots. It’s been quite rough until now, but today the sun came out for a while and…
We were becalmed all last night in the Southern Ocean. Seems incredible! It was not peaceful at all, because the sloppy seas had us lurching about like a WC Fields drunk. Extremely frustrating, the absence…
As expected, the wind increased this afternoon so it’ll be back to lurching and crashing tonight. At least the knickers are clean, the colon metamucilated and the toilet working. We are romping along in 43S.…
We had a boisterous, cold trip out to the Chathams from Cook Strait. Strong, icy beam winds and steep seas. Much crashing and banging but the boat flew and it took us barely 3 days.…
09.12.06 Marlborough Sounds Ah, the sweet smell of success! We’ve fixed the sailmail modem cable. Sheer bloodymindedness won out in the end – a testament to OCD. We spent 3 hours head down in a…
After a splendid sail up from Enderby Island the Snares came into view mid-afternoon. Eponymously named (like the North and South Traps), in the 18th century the Snares were the bane of sailing vessels in…