Fri 24/02-2012 Day 179

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The red color sometimes looks like graffity on the rocks, it is a sort of algea

Pos: here
Loc: Isla Wellington
Acc: tent
Dist: 57,6 km
Start: 7:20 End: 18:40

I had frost again on my tent this morning, and I was just about warm enough in my sleeping bag, with my usual bandana scarf around my ears (for the extra warmth) and eyes (for the missing “curtains”). But frost meant a clear blue sky! The second time I woke to that in Fjordland now!

It’s so amazing at first light when the sun comes over the mountains, for a professional photographer this must be a great time of the day. I am on the west side of the channel, so when the sun rises on the east, I have the early morning sun right away! This morning, I caught sunshine very early as it was rising over an open Fjord arm, displaying the long “Campo de Hielo Sur” glacier range – beautiful! Different to the single glaciers I saw further south, but I’ll soon be paddling in the glacier lagoon “Laguna San Raffael”, directly at a foot of a glacier again. This will be after the Gulfo de Penas, when there is a short common portage through a river to be done. Nobody paddles outside, even the ancient people knew this portage!

It became quite warm soon, and I could paddle without gloves and only with a thin scarf on my head. Time to get dark tanned hands again! They had already been like that, but as soon I turned into the very southern area I paddled always with gloves and they lost their nice tan… 🙂

Right before I had to turn left of Isla Saumaraz into a narrow channel, I saw about 8-10 whales at play! All those spouts where looking like a garden fountain in the triangle before Isla Saumarez! They probably enjoyed the sunny weather as well.

The narrow channel to the left had very steep mountains to the side, and I really enjoyed my sunny day looking at details, with a nice breeze in the back. Fjordland wilderness is so beautiful! I saw big hanging moss stalactites hanging down the rocky walls, mostly dripping from some water running down the moss beards. The colors of the algae on the rocks changes from bright white to deep red, and it looks like someone had sprayed red graffiti on the rocks! And the tree are growing out of the rock walls sometimes almost horizontal! Amazing that they are holding in the probably not too deep soil layer. It is really a green wilderness! The best time for flowers blooming seems to be finishing, as I think I saw more blossoms further south. But you can see as well that it has been raining very little here the last few days! I hope it will stay like that for a while…

Approaching the southern end of Isla Angle, where I turned left again, I saw some smoke coming out of the bushes. Is there some one having his camp? I was curious! The channels was only one km wide here, so I easily crossed over to Isla Angel, which turned out to have a small separate island at the southern end. Who was hiding there in the bushes? Other kayakers? Men at work making a new light house? Simply fisher men having a break?

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One still "active" camp on a mussel shell pile...

I came closer, and found one of those piles of empty mussel shells, but this one was fresh and black and not old and bleached! A simple camp shed was behing it, where the smoke came out. It had a tin roof, and just some tarp curtains as walls. A landing site for a smaller fishing boat was at the western side, but no boat there.Later I found the guy’s rowing boat just around the corner in a shallow bay.

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The mussle pile inhabitant's water craft, a row boat

I called out “ola, ola”, and soon a young guy showed up, waving at me. A black and a white dog was standing at the top of the cliff edge of the landing bay and barked at me, and a cat was strolling over the mussel shell pile. Quite some life there! In this case, I’m sorry that my Spanish coversation is not much more than “Ola, ola!” “Como estas?” “No hablamas Espagnol, yo soy Allemande!”

The guy was asking something I didn’t understand, and then was pointing in either direction – yes, I’m going north! I lifted my camera asking for a picture, but he wasn’t happy with that. I had a picture of the site already before he showed up…what was he doing there all day, probably by himself? Was he working on the mussels, or are those just for personal food?

I just left, as I saw a small fishing boat coming down from the north, loaded with a pile of mussels, heading just to that landing site…new work, or new food just for the guys? Maybe I’m learning more abut that location in Puerto Eden. Those 200 people are probably all fisher men there, I’m hoping to find at least one English speaking person!

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Another nice waterfall!

30 km left…I found a camp site at a river mouth, this time in high grass with plenty of dry leaves on the sandy ground and on “my special river corner” high and dry (I’m hoping…). It was the third possibility in one bay, the first try was a cobble beach with marginal level space on the top end, which would have been possible, but I had hopes for the very end of the bay, almost an inlet. It had a grassy beach, but was not too inviting regarding dryness and grass quality. And a big waterfall to the left made too much noise! The last possibility was this more friendly river mouth, with some sand and my dry grass spot.

I’ll arrive at Puerto Eden tomorrow just after lunch time. Let’s see how it will be going there, regarding shopping, hot shower, laundry, internet and recharging my electronics.

1 comment on “Fri 24/02-2012 Day 179

Meike

die Landschaft ist wunderschön dort. In der Laguna de San Rafael war ich vor ca. 15 Jahren (mit dem Skorpios). Einfach klasse und es ist toll zu sehen wie die Gletscher kalben 🙂 Die Natur ist einzigartig und hat sich in meinem Gedächtnis eingraviert. Bin gespannt ob es Pto. Eden Leute gibt die Englisch reden. Aber Freya du meisters es schon. Aber sage.: “soy alemana” ( ich bin deutsche) oder “soy de Alemania” ( bin aus Deutschland) und” no hablo espanol”, aber wie ich dich kenne, wirst du keine Probleme mit der Kommunikation haben. Die Chilenen sind auch sehr nett und hilfsbereit und ihr werdet euch schon verstehen. Hoffe, dass es eine Person in Puerto Eden gibt, die sich etwas um die kümmert.
Weiterhin alles Gute und ein schönes Wochenende saludos 🙂

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