Pos: here
Loc: southern headland Golfo Nuevo
Acc: tent
Dist: 80 km (23 km+ 57 km)
Start: 7:30 End: 01:00
portage 11:30 to 14:15

The tides in the Golf are strange – last night it was lowest water possible, this morning highest water possible…one tide a day, not two…and don’t tell me about currents…they are simply there. Take them as they come, with you or against you.

I cut across the Golfo San José in a direct line, starting in a foggy morning. The first 5 km close to the entrance were quite choppy, but then it calmed out to flat water and I made good progress with the easy 23 km ahead!
Not a single whale in sight this day…yet.

My landing point was easy to be spotted, and my friendly helpers were already on the lookout to greet me. What a service! The helpers were for sure already organized by Alejandro, the organizing genius! Thanks, Ale!

It was an easy flat beach, but the water on that side was quite a distance gone already. So I had to unload as usual, and walk my gear with my helpers to the real beach, where the man was getting his pick up truck to load eventually kayak and gear and me. He had to climb over the co-driver’s seat to get into the wheelhouse, as my kayak was diagonal across the back, blocking the driver’s door. But who cares! 🙂

A brief discussion what to do in the friendly kitchen of the Estancia (hey, I could have stayed here for a while!), and it happened that an friend of the family called her partner who happened to be a park ranger – those guys where the permit was still in process…
“You are not allowed to kayak on the Golfos of Peninsula Valdez, stop instantly! Drive to Puerto Madryn or Puerto Piramides where we need to talk!” Or better to say to write me a ticket me or to arrest me or such…

But my helpers reassured it was the Prefectura who had the last word on the permission to kayak, and this permit was what I had – still we didn’t want to launch from Puerto Piramides to run into those Park Rangers!
Unfortunately the closest and nearest public access was flooded on the dirt tracks after the heavy rain, but with Alejandro’s telephone help (what else! :-)) we found friends on another Estancia in between where I could launch from private ground.

The drive on the Estancia tracks was nice, as I was sitting on the back of the open truck watching my gear bags and holding my kayak. But the drive on the “highway” to Puerto Piramides was horrible, as my driver had to go quite fast, and the well paved road was packed with cars. Especially when a big tourist bus came past on the other side, it gave quite a side wash.

I was wondering what all those cars were doing here – on a peninsula where you were not allowed to touch the beaches…I soon got to know. It was a long weekend, and it was whale watching season and reasonable weather…Puerto Piramides must be packed with whale watching tourists.

The beach on the Estancia on the southern sides had another wide flat beach to walk out on low tide, but eventually I was packed again and ready to go. I should just avoid a certain boat out there…but which? The Prefectura is ok with me, and the Park Ranger’s are not the ones to stop me on the water…honestly, the whole permit process and who has to allow what and when made me quite sick I just wanted to paddle, and to get away from the peninsula as fast as possible. Great wild life, friendly inhabitants, but the bureaucracy…and I was not keen to run into any boat at all.

Well, I soon realized the bureaucracy didn’t seem to bother filling up the whale watcher boats out there – 5 bigger boats overloaded with about 40-50 people were floating around the whales which happen to be closest into the bay…one boat on each whale. I think the whale liked the distraction, but still – though I was tempted to take pics of the first whale showing up soon, I saw one of the overloaded boats coming straight to this whale, and I rather paddled away. I wanted my own whale to watch! 🙂

First none of the five boats did really take notice of me, though what they could watch was probably more rare than the whales in this bay – it was literally littered with whales!

Soon one boat was passing by, and all the guys were shouting: “Freya, Freya!” Somebody must have told them…should I make them “The Whale” as well?…by spouting with my electrical bilge pump? But I was not keen on flooding my cockpit for that purpose…besides a short wave to the boat I made a constant pace to get away from here…I was really not up to entertain a horde of tourists!

Later, the biggest boat came up to me from behind, and as I couldn’t avoid a look any longer the guide was asking me if I’d was ok, which I confirmed with thumb up, and kept on paddling. He probably couldn’t believe it…one woman, alone 5 km offshore, and in a kayak, heading to toward the exit…she can’t be ok, she must be crazy. How right he was…

He was shouting something else, sounding like “Watch out there are whales, and the bay is dangerous!” or such – oh, yes, I knew! Very dangerous waters…it was a friendly directly following 15-20 kn winds, creating lovely wind waves I really enjoyed to surf all day! I just wished I had an empty boat…

And now my own whale performance…I couldn’t really count them, this bay was really a whale’s paradise. And the were not only floating side by side and wriggling around each other probably making love as my last close whale encounter was, these guys were really performer! Jumping high, falling down with a  sound like a cannon shot back on the water, showing beautifully their tail fins and the whole length of their bodies. I did not really have to get out of my way to take some video…hope it is something great! No time to take pics as well…sorry. I was kind of “oh, another whale, see how he can perform!”, switched on the video camera, and more or less kept on paddling. They were enough just in my direction…

At some point I saw something big white flashing underneath my kayak in the crystal clear water – dolphins! I can’t really remember if I had seen some on this trip already…first one guy playing around my boat for a while, then he came back with his mates, about 5 or six! I LOVE dolphins, they are always my good omen,,,

When I was launching again the second time, I was not even sure where to go – just away from the buzz of Puerto Piramides anf the overloaded touristic whale watching boats – so no floating around the bay there. Well, I can’t have it all…

The diastance to the headland of the entrance of the bay on the mainland side was 41 km only on my GPS, and the wind was perfectly pushing, the water was friendly surf-able, no tidal movements annoying me – but I’d arrive about an hour after sunset. Ok, no problem, what’s one hour in the darkness for some one who paddled through a couple of nights…no reason to stay on the Peninsula side and to cross another day.

On Google earth I saw a big beach inside the bay headland, my chart pointed out “dunes” at the top, so this should be ok to land, even at night. The moon was almost full and would be out until 5 am, the sky was reasonable clear…so just go! I powered along, enjoyed my new “freedom” of the permit area, and enjoyed the sight of the whales playing around me, closer or spouting and showing their fins in the distance. I estimate I saw about 50 of them or so…no idea.

I could see the headland with a sandy looking dune area already far from the distance in this good visibility, and enjoyed it coming closer and my GPS km counting down fast. But still one hour short of daylight! Only…

Night came, and the time from the “official” sunset to the real dark sky was more than an 40 min in theses latitudes – and the moon was up already. It was not really dark at all!

I headed constantly toward my intended landing spot, and was wondering how the beach would look like, and how the surf would be in the wind waves…

Eventually I realized the “beach” was one of those steep small pebble stone ones I was landing on on my landfall after the crossing. I could judge the surf by the white line becoming wider or narrower in height, when the dumpers were crashing with more or less intensity. I could paddle quite close, but I didn’t dare to land…it felt too scary in almost darkness to land in this surf! I paddled along to the west, assuming the headland must create in that wind direction a more violent dumper, and was hoping the more I got into the bay, the less the dumper would be in strength. Probably a good assumption, but the bottom of the wide bay was quite some way west, about 6-7 km. I paddled about 3,5 km west, and then got fed up with this direction where I didn’t really wanted to go any way! The dumpers may have gotten less, but I still didn’t dare to land.

It became 10 pm, 11 pm, and I was still paddling…now into the other direction, hoping to find in the on my chart marked “dunes” area a better beach. But the “dunes” were just behind this ugly endless steep pebble stone beach…at some point the beach was white, and in the flash of my strong lamp hundreds of birds were disturbed in their night peace and flew up…sorry! But I was estimating later this must have been the last reasonable spot to land NOW through the moderate dumper, but I still was not keen to take the risk. I was safer afloat, still warm and dry, and the water was not too rough. The wind was strong, but nothing I couldn’t handle…

I kept on paddling south around the headland, and eventually enjoyed the “right” wind direction again. But soon I saw lots of white lines of breakers I had to avoid! It is nothing unusual to have a reef break around a headland, so I simply gave it a wide berth. Still the sight of white fat breakers at night in moonlight is nothing really I’d liked to see…but I was safe out there.

Midnight came, and I was still paddling…eventually the following wind became quite strong, and the sea went up accordingly…I looked at my map and chart again and again, and eventually spotted a tiny bay which must provide some shelter from the wind and calmer seas, I thought…shelter, protection, landing…this was all I wanted.

I “only” had to turn in in another wide berth of probably 1,5 km, and this meant paddling against about 20-25 km headwinds…but I rather faced the “enemy” than having it from behind…and powered along. Slowly cutting down the meters…and the deep dark bay with the steep cliff wall which was present along all the headland came close, and the water calmed down. If I couldn’t land here, I’d stay afloat until next morning, I thought…not really the nicest thought, but now the safest. I eventually was quite chilly, and was again yearning my Kokatat Storm Cag would be with me…

I paddled closer and closer, the dark wall came nearer and nearer. I negotiated closely some ugly breakers, but realized they were only on the southern end. The northern end seemed to be calm! Eventually I even had some more or less wind shelter, and felt actually quite relieved…

The white surf dumper line got less and less on the steep beach before the cliffs. This must be again a steep pebble stone beach as usual, but better than no beach now! I paddled as far north as I felt it got less with the surf, and eventually decided: “NOW! Or I would stay afloat all night…” No the nicest outlook, so I put on my helmet, and paddled as close as I could without getting caught in the dumper. I took my chance on a small lull, and got washed up with an ugly stony sound the actually not too steep beach on this tide, sitting eventually high and dry….in one piece, me and my kayak. Not much of a problem…once you dared to do it in the moonlight.

Ok, shaky feeling off my legs, and the night shift started on the beach! I first texted I was ok, as my contacts were probably wondering why there was no message yet, then unloading, climbing the three ledges I thought I need to sleep safe from the tide. I shone my flash light around, and spotted several seal lying around, but fortunately where I wanted to camps, there was space enough.

I unloaded three heavy gear bags plus fresh water 16 liter, and eventually was able to drag up my boat as well. I took my time to set up camp in safety now, carefully anchoring my sand pegs in the small pebble stones. Nothing should disturb my sleep in a  change of wind…

Close by, I heard the sounds of the elephant seals – quite a concert! But leave them their space, and they leave you yours…no worries. They are not aggressive!

The most heroic thing of the day I decided to come now – stripping fully on the beach and having a small fresh water shower…I really felt I needed it, and had enough water loaded. Brrrrrrrr…it took me a while, despite the hot soup I had at night, to get warm again…especially my feet…next time I boil water only for heating my feet…

I fell asleep to the concert of my neighbors, the elephant seals, with the thought that tomorrow would be again a rest day. Headwinds were forecasted, perfect…