Pos: here
Loc: Lebu
Acc: Navy Lebu
Dist: 79,3 km
Start: 8:30 End: 00:55

Last night, the fisherman Xavier came to Gina’s house to confirm my launching help next morning. Xavier is one of the rare men gifted with an incredible sexy voice… :-)) We agreed to meet at the beach at first light around 8 am. I’m feeling quite relaxed having accepted the launching help!

This surf belt here is almost as bad as the worst one I saw in Australia, and that means a lot!

Harald was so nice to load my kayak again on his truck with the help of Luco. I packed my boat on the beach in darkness, and we were waiting for the fishermen crew. They took a while to wash the boat they are going to use, as all was slippery from fish rests…thanks! Even later, when I was supposed to sit on a bench in the open boat, I was happy Xavier gave me something to sit on, as my dry suit would have been smelling of fish for days after that…am I too picky?

Five young guys were eventually on the boat, after even a few more men were helping to push it on the water. Even with a few logs put on the sand under the boat was still quite heavy to push in!

Eventually they were afloat in the shallows, and two guys kept the boat straight with long oars used as stakes. They loaded my heavy kayak length wise in their boat, and I quickly jumped in as well.

And now…waiting, waiting, timing, and at some point, Xavier turned up the engine, and sideways across, just after one big roller was coming in, he was cutting through the surf zone with high speed. The rollers fortunately have quite some distance between each other, though still being huge this morning! And yesterday it was even worse.

The strong engine on the boat had no trouble to get us through the surf zone safely, these guys know what they are doing! About 1,2 km off the beach, the swell didn’t break any more, and we stopped to get me afloat. Not that they wouldn’t have been happy to drive me fully to Lebu! But that was not the plan.

Out there in the open ocean, the water’s surface again was calm, and I had no problem paddling happily into the beautiful sunny day. One last picture, and I waved my friendly helping fishermen crew good bye! Thanks very much, guys!
I cut directly across the wide long bay, and the further off from the beach I was, the calmer the sea got, and the less noise from the surf I heard. No reason to paddle close to the coast if you can’t land and only hear “Danger! Danger!”

It was, paddling in this direct line, only 75 km, so my ETA was around 1 am. All easy going, and it was quite a lovely day! I had plenty of new food, and ate what was fitting into me. Eating is a bit of distraction, so to have nice and different food stuff plays a big role on a paddle which may be other ways a bit boring out there on the open water.
The morning on the beach, I got to talk to a Navy officer in Lebu who spoke reasonably good English on the cell phone, and I was quite sure he understood me right when I said I don’t need an escort boat for the whole day, just in the hours of the night, it might be nice this time. I’ll switch on my VHF channel 16 from 5 pm on, to listen when they were driving out to find me. I would be expecting their call to tell them my position then!

5 pm came, and the night came closer, and there came no call. It became dark, there was no call from them…well, I guessed, as I was kind of regretting anyway I agreed on an escort boat, and as it was a perfect and easy, beautiful and not too long night’s paddle, so I didn’t call myself.

The first hour of darkness had a nice open sky with many stars, and paddling was nice! The wind was again low, seas alm, just a bit of swell barely to notice way out there. Unfortunately, the next two hours came a bit of fog, but it was light enough to see the coast and to paddle well.
Around 9 pm, I saw and heard a boat way out there going south which sounded and looked to me quite like a Navy boat…but they still didn’t call me!

Actually, I hate to call on the radio, as my language barrier makes communication hard to understand. Maybe they felt the same and were just waiting for me to call? But my understanding was that *they’d* call *me*…so I let them pass going south, and thought “let’s play a bit cat and mouse”…finding me later in the darkness will be a bit of a nice challenge for both.
Around 10.30 pm, I eventually decided to call them myself and to make them find me, as it would be a pity if they’d launch the boat without having an exercise target…and as expected, communication was tough understanding, and switching between the channels. I gave my position twice, and didn’t hear anything again for an hour. Another call came around 11 pm, I gave again my position. Actually, operating the radio in darkness is no pleasure, as I have to still *see* what I am doing and to switch my headlight on. At some point, I even needed to change batteries, as somehow they have been sucked dead at some point, though I never use it. Fortunately, the water was calm and I am a good balancer…

Eventually, I heard them behind me around 11.30 pm, and soon saw their position lights. I switched on my headlamp, but turned it back wards that they could see and find me, but my own night vision was not disturbed. This worked for them to keep track and to stay in a reasonable distance behind me, and I could paddle on with good night vision and to paddle my way.

Though they couldn’t help to try out all their toys like a strong searching spot light, flashing lights in blue, several flashes probably to take night pictures, and I am sure they had a night sight device to play with, too. They probably imagined I may be a smuggler’s boat to be discovered and chased or such :-)) Anyway, I probably provided now a good exercise target! Thanks for all the efforts!

Paddling at night with a boat following feels very comfortable and is no real challenge. But I still wonder if they’d be happy to pull me out of the water at night just in case I’d have decided to go swimming! Maybe next time we should play that exercise game…the boat guys wouldn’t know, and I’d just have agreed with some shore officer to play that “rescue”… :-))

But I still think – in real “Big” conditions when *I* may be getting in trouble, a launched zodiac from a big boat would be in trouble, too. Like the return from the effort to reach Isla Hornos – NO ONE would have been able to help me there. But I agree I should not have been out there, too…

Twice, the captain probably thought I should stay more away from the coast, and made a loop to show me to get further out. Soon, we arrived the area just out of Lebu, where many, many fishing boats were out there in this beautiful night! The sky had opened up again around 11.30 pm, and the night felt like being in a Disco, with all the lights now from the boats, stars, light house, port, harbor wall and from the whole city of Lebu. It was eventually a pleasant guided night paddle for beginners! Still it may be confusing with all those lights for a “real” beginner out there…

The harbor break wall leading into the river was clearly lit with a line of white lights and a red flashing one on the end. The big boats follow the wall to the left,leading into the river and into the deep water harbor. I got signaled from the boat and from people on the harbour wall’s end to paddle to the right of the wall, and to stay close to the wall paddling between a long line of breaking rocks to an easy narrow shallow calm landing beach. There was another huge long and I think old wooden jetty or breakwater visible to the right.

I got greeted by the local officers, and they had a truck with an over sized, but matching trailer ready to transport me to the navy building. I got a nice room, hot shower and was thankful to be so well looked after!

Muchas gracias, Armada de Chile!