Tainui came to terms with her abandonment in Puerto Montt. She sat on the hard through a wet cold winter with injured dignity but little to show for it other than dead batteries and a…

“We’ve had a great sail across the bay from that fjord where the battleship Dresden hid. We passed Puerto Bonito with that lovely house on the point and it occurred to me you should buy…

Suddenly we were back in Quellon, with its gorgeous yellow fishing boats and that spectacular volcano backdrop. It is such a frontier town. Martin was impressed, Dave was appalled and I just love it. At…

After his protracted bout of pneumonia poor Dave has at last stopped sleeping all day. He is still lumpen and non-contributory but he’s on the mend I think. Martin is a real asset – a…

We are now in Chacabuco, whose main claim to fame is that it is a bit bigger than Puerto Aguirre. The anchorage is secure however, surrounded by rocky, steep hills with emerald patchwork. And close…

After a grand fast reach down Canal Errazuriz. we stopped over for the night at a secure little spot, stern tied in to the trees. The usual mossy rocks and sodden rain forest 10 feet…

We ran square at 8-11 knots, rolling and lurching sickeningly in steep seas coming from every which way. I had about 40 sq ft of yankee unrolled and pulled in hard with both sheets. I…

We romped south down Canal Messier at 10-12 knots, with poled out yankee and full main and 25 knots of wind across the deck. It is cold and intermittently showery, but all-in-all very nice. The…

With falling barometer and freshening NW winds we made for a little cove on the southern side of Isla Vittorio. Ahead through the mizzle loomed the ghostly apparition of MV Capitan Leonides, a freighter wrecked…

We’re bypassing Puerto Natales, so Puerto Eden (pop 140) is our last human contact before Puerto Williams. It is a poor, lonely outpost. But when the current sweeps you round the point out of the Inglese…

Anchoring in Patagonian waters is problematic. The fjords are often very deep and the bottom tends to be rocky except right in close to creek outflows. Hal Roth discovered this to his cost. Fishing boats…

The grand fjord of Seno Iceberg was free of eponymous white bricks until we reached the head. There we turned the engine off and sat in awed silence, barely 200 metres from the towering face…

16.12.07 I’ve been sitting staring at a blank Sailmail screen for the last 20′, waiting for the muse. I don’t want to write pretentious, travelogue or air-headed. I’m trying to think of things to say…

After a windy night at Steamer Duck Lagoon, yesterday we entered Estero Peel. This is a grand fjord which sweeps east and then north into the heart of the Andes. I have been here many times…

After a windy night at Caleta Damien we surged out into Estero Collingwood with bleak weather, staysail and poled out yankee, doing over 9 knots over the ground. In freshening winds we poked into Paso…

It was time to exit the labyrinth of canales we have been threading since we departed Puerto Montt a hundred years ago. There was nothing clement about the weather as we left Teoteka. I didn’t…

With 4 lines ashore and 2 anchors down, we had our stern pulled in to within 10 feet of the weather shore. We were very secure but the rachas whistling down from the mountains were…

15 kts of SW wind and the last of the ebb had us scurrying east through the straits past Isla Carteret in Bahia Swallow. The charts here contain a veritable checklist of great maritime names……

We continued our meandering course south via Paso Aguirre, Canal Occasion and Canal O’Brien in grey, windy conditions. These are hallowed waters for those who’ve read Darwin and FitzRoy. Isla Basket probably hasn’t changed much…

This morning was misty and still, Micalvi’s grey decks damp. At 8.30 I went up to Captain de Puerto to get a zarpa for our next Beagle Channel trip with Ian, Rosie and Jenny. The…

It is 11.30am and Ian has gone exploring. Rosie is still asleep. Jen has just announced that the aft toilet is blocked – there goes my solitude. It rained all night. It is cold and…

We’ve just come out of the illegal Canal Sin Nombre, into Beagle North. Pia Este is only an hour away. It’s cold and raining. Rosie is doing nicotine withdrawal cross stitching and Jenny is astral…

A miserable night in the Beagle Channel. It is snowing on the tops and now sleet lashes the decks. The rigging whistles as we heel steeply to the gusts but we are tucked into Caleta…

We roared back from Caleta Olla in gale force winds and steep seas. The weather was so bad that Ushuaia port was closed to shipping for the day, I believe. As we surfed past the…