Fri 09/03-2012 Day 193

P3090119.JPG
Do the animals here have bones in their balls???

Pos: here
Loc: Isla Del Diabolo
Acc: tent
Dist: 57,6 km
Start: 8:30 End: 20:05

I slept perfectly again! Last night was already a treat, long and sound after the horrible night on the fish box! There is nothing like sleep with no safety worries, horizontal and (almost) noiseless.

All was dry this morning, nice to pack. But the clouds were hanging low and dark, though it was supposed to stay dry today.

I paddled out of my paradise bay, past the yellow-orange “huge rock” I left yesterday on my left, thinking this *may* be again a dead whale, but not checking. The thought of a stinky cadaver was not match up with view of a camp site in warm sun shine on a white beach, and there was no smell reaching me.

But this morning the “rock”, which was really a whale cadaver, was moving up and down in the 2 meter swell, which had changed obviously direction over night. It was a sight which was not really attractive, the leftover rotten whale blubber bumping up and down the rocks in that tiny bay, as if the blubber was to be cut into pieces. That obviously happened quite a bit, rubbing at least tiny pieces of the huge body. I was floating as close as my nose allowed, and the water was littered with greasy pieces… yuck! The thought now of my dip not too far away from this death bay came to my mind…but there was nothing to notice yesterday! Still…

My paddle out of the bay left past Isla Maldonado was on water which still had 2-2,5 meters swell, but it was calm on the surface. Just the movement close to the rocks was as heavy as yesterday, and kind of fascinating to paddle so close past.

P3090114.JPG
Can I paddle through this one?
P3090116.JPG
Just passed the lucky arch

Last night, around high tide at 1.30 am, the swell created a noise some where offshore in a cave, like 5 time bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, three seconds break, and allover again…eerie…

P3090113.JPG
Trees are growing here double story

The whole morning was eerie…I have never seen clouds in a color like that, hanging so low. It was quite “Weltuntergangs-Stimmung” (no idea what that is in English…), or if “das jüngste Gericht” is coming down soon (Edda, you may translate…).  (Doomsday, Judgement Day, E 🙂 ) The colours of the clouds where ranging from almost black to deep dark lilac to dark purple, with tiny small spots of the sun breaking through in orange and yellow. The sun was winning eventually, melting the cloud’s darkness, but couldn’t fully break though all day. But it was at least light!

P3090077.JPG
The triple arch!

The paddle until Bahia Kelly was as spectacular as yesterday’s last ten kilometers, rocky pillars, arches, caves, water falls, one after the other, or all at once. I paddled through two arches, as the swell allowed it. One of them was a triple arch in one big boulder! But I didn’t dare to enter any cave. Too much swell. The rocky pillars had all kind of fantastic shapes, and I found a bunch for my “naughty” rocky penis collection :-))

P3090086.JPG
The hairy one...
P3090079.JPG
Arches, plenty!

Then I came to the day’s high light – a huge cave, inhabited by a seal colony of about 120-150 animals! The noise they were usually making was much louder than usual due to the echo of the cave! I was calling Peter for a “live” report of seal noises, and my son Helge, but could reach only his father who was also quite amazed to hear it.

P3090104.JPG
The huge cave with about 200 seals - they made quite an echoing noise!
P3090093.JPG
The seal's cave with the arch from the side
P3090103.JPG
The seals eventually sent out their watch dogs to chase me away

There were a few big birds in the back of the cave as well, and I was wondering what kind of birds were having a living community with seals – as soon as the first of five flew outside the cave after becoming aware of me I realized what kind of birds they were…vultures…obviously feeding on a dead baby seal. That’s life…

P3090098.JPG
The vultures are living in cooperation in the seal's cave, eating the rest of the undigested food - literally the seal's poop

Five black vultures with red heads were eventually sitting just outside the cave on a rock, watching what I was up to. Taking pictures, for sure! Unfortunately, the sun light in this morning was opposite to yesterday afternoon’s perfect illumination from the west, and my pictures may all be a bit dark inside the cave, but we’ll see. It was definitively the most interesting seal colony of the trip! Eventually, a big bunch of “watchmen” were launching, floating around me sticking their heads out of the water. Time to leave them in their peace!

P3090080.JPG
Another hole in the rocks

I was aiming to cross Bahia Kelly, and saw the inviting beginning of the long sandy beach reaching from Bahia Kelly to the entrance of Rio San Tadeo, where I was supposed to paddle in to reach the short portage section to the glacier lagoon San Rafael.

P3090081.JPG
More caves and sea stakes

I paddled and paddled across, but couldn’t really reach the beach where I saw the end of the huge glacier San Quintin behind a narrow sandy beach and a small stripe of forest. My GPS map was useless in this area, so I didn’t really know how much distance was left, but the river mouth entrance was almost 90 degrees to the left! Eventually I lost patience, and at 20 km left for an offshore crossing to a point I had marked as a possible short cut hauling over the sandy bar already into the river, I decided to head directly to that GPS position. It was about 8 km short of the real entrance, but may be saving a few km from what I saw of “reality” on Google Earth.

P3090082.JPG
Caves were en masse in this coast
P3090111.JPG
Just one more waterfall

I had seen so many glaciers and will see one more tomorrow, so paddling off shore across the bay was a good as paddling along an endless sandy beach, though I haven’t seen a real sandy beach for weeks! The crossing became long and boring after the last km of exciting coast line, but the outlook of leaving the sea again for the Fjords was lurking! Though, I must admit, paddling the “real” sea is more exciting, more varied, and probably much more challenging. But I have to take what I get!

P3090084.JPG
Rock formations in excess
P3090108.JPG
Caves, and a long mossy drippy hanging Stalactite

Eventually I neared the coast at my planned point, realizing the beautiful sandy long beach was guarded by a horrible dumper which would have been a wet challenge to land. The seemingly almost gone swell on the calm sea was still there!

P3090106.JPG
Wild!

I decided it was not worth the risk of landing here for a possible short cut, as the real river mouth was only 8,5 km away. It was 6 pm, so I’d be reaching the river mouth around 7.30 pm, if I’d not be able to land earlier. The dumper *must* go down, getting closer and turning more west!

P3090120.JPG
A huge Hamburger on the sandy beach??? A flying UFO just landed? It must be a coral piece. It was about 40-50 cm in diameter.

But first I had to navigate a reef area, where seemingly huge and a lot of breakers were reaching far out. Oh well…I paddled around, and a strange white pointy object was luring me to land, 3,5 km short of the river mouth. Fortunately, the reef area which was actually very small and with low breakers, marked a change of the beach shape as well, and the violent dumper was almost gone, rolling now out smoother and softer on a lower beach rather than hitting the steep beach all along the earlier part.

P3090121.JPG
Camp on the sandy beach at Bahia San Quintin

I landed safely and dry, and felt like being in the “real” sea again. Well, for tonight…

The “strange white object” was a bleached huge whale vertebra!

6 comments on “Fri 09/03-2012 Day 193

Edda

Your’re right Cam, it is that distance. If on Google Earth you zoom into the area, you’ll see three piccies posted. There is a sort of path, but it looks very iffy in most areas.
It’ll be quite a slog and will likely take two or three trips to get kayak and all gear bags across.
But the effort will pay dividends in form of a shorter and less wind driven onward journey.

Well done girl, you’re making great progress.

Cam

So that’s where you were headed… I couldn’t figure it out from your casual references to a portage in earlier posts. I still can’t figure out where you are going to be making the actual portage. The closest points from the river(s) to Laguna San Rafael are about 1-2 km long. And it looks like thick forest.. Oh well… I must be missing some important detail. I will have to wait and see until you make it through.

Jörg Hofferbert

Hai Freya, if i see, where you stay now, i´m afraid, you go a little detour again.

In google earth the pictures confirm your marveless descriptions.

Meike

klasse, nun bist du ja fast in der laguna !!!!! Was für eine Leistung 🙂 Freya du bist einfach nur Spitze
Freue mich darauf dann irgendwann die Bilder zu sehen. Hoffe, dass der Weg zur laguna nicht zu schwer wird. Geniesse die laguna de San Rafael, es ist dort einfach nur wunderschön. Werde an dich denken, evt. triffst du ja den Skorpios. Freya die besten Wünsche aus DK y saludos

Karen

Attraction and repulsion. Can we see beauty in decay. Everything is impermanent even our view of a perfect beach.:) Made me laugh.
Love how you write about everything.
Thanks Freya.
ps thanks Joe

Comments are closed