Fri 12/10-2012 Day 296

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Seal action!

Pos: here
Loc: Caleta Chanvayita
Acc: tent
Dist: 51,3 km
Start: 9:20 End: 18:10

Tomorrow:
Estimated landing: Iquique Yachtclub
Estimated starting time: Right after sunrise
Estimated landing time: Well before sunset

I was getting up three times at night to check on the repair of Peter’s bow, as I liked to press out any poossible air bubbles out of the slow drying resin. We finished the repair at 9 pm, I got up once at midnight, once at 2.30 am, and once at 5.30 am, while Peter was snoring…

It looked all good in the morning, and it looked also hard (enough) to get going around 8 am. Still we preferred to do a water test in the bow compartment… Peter poured three helmets full of water in there, and f…, it was still dripping at the bottom… no damage to be seen, the repair looked really good, but water finds it’s own way…

This time I used my fast drying epoxy syringe to seal the leakage, and we checked again after about 40 min…f…still a few drops, but less…the bow compartment needs to be dry.

Another drying time which we spent moving the kayaks and gear to a different launching spot between the rocks 100 m further down, where the small swell waves are not looking as nasty as around our corner in the narrower gap.

Eventually it all looked dry, no water from inside leaking out, and outside it was *reasonable* dry. Sure it would be much better to let it thoroughly dry a full day, but we wanted to paddle and not to sit around a full sunny calm day….

We took utmost care on launching Peter’s boat through this rock gap, and he got afloat without touching anything with the probably still a bit fragile bow.

I was following all right, and we were happy to be on the way again.

Besides many, many jelly fish again, on one of the first headlands we not only saw as usual hundreds of seals and birds, but also a few penguins on the dry rocks. This was new for Peter, to see the little men in tuxedos standing up! When I was paddling in Argentine, it must have been nesting season, as I saw thousands of them on dry land! Here, we didn’t see any apart frpm today’s few guys on the rocks.

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Trailing seals at Punta Lobos

Aptly named Punta Lobos, this headland had one of the larges seal colonies of Chile. What a stinky, noisy place full of life!

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Literally a pool of seals! Any many, many more on the rocks.
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...more seals...

Caleta Patacha and Caleta Patillos both had harbors for loading some mining products. No inviting place to land.

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They are so cute!
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And so curious!

We were rather heading to our Caleta Chanavayita, which had a beautiful natural harbor, a white sandy (artificial) reasonably clean beach, even with trash cans, and a bunch of holiday houses additionally to the many anchored fishing boats. That there was a sign about “no tents” and “no fires and barbecues” on the beach we didn’t see, only after a local guy came up to us to tell us…too late. And for one night he seemed to be ok…

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I really like your beard!

Before we landed, we saw three youngsters standing in the waist deep water, holding onto one of those nutshells which the fishermen use to reach their boats in the anchorage. It looked like they had a great time playing, but one guy seem to ask us something which we didn’t understand. It must have been something like “could you please tow this boat out to somewhere?” as later they seemed to be tired (or too cold) to hold onto it, and simply let it go, drifting into the shallow rocks…why the hell did they not simply dragged it to shore instead of just letting it float alone? Sometimes youngsters seem to have no brain.

3 comments on “Fri 12/10-2012 Day 296

Randall Lackey

It will be good and best to get your boats repaired properly, even if it takes a little longer. You know you don’t need a flooded compartment on the ocean.Safe paddling.

Meike

Hoffentlich hält die Reparatur. Wünsche Euch ein schönes Wochenende, werde von der Arbeit aus an Euch denken.
Wie ich lese habt Ihr schon Helfer in Iquique. Toll, so kann alles repariert werden etc.etc. .Es ist immer wieder eine Freude zu sehen, dass es hilfsbereite Menschen gibt. Einen ruhigen Paddeltag an Euch Beide. Hier in DK er det kold og det stormer, efteråret er over os.
Leibe Grüsse, kærlige hilsener

Robert Knopel

Peter and Freya
I have one guy here in Iquique in touch for the repair of Peters boat.
Tomorrow after your arrive here we can see what we do.
Have a nice trip up to Iquique, we will be there waiting you.
Best regards
Robert

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