Pos: here
Loc: Caleta Olla, Tierra del Fuego
Acc: tent
Dist: 46,5 km
Start: 5:05 End: 14:40

A day for the gourmet paddler – no wind until noon, millpond in Beagle Channel! It calmed actually already down last night, and if I’d be keen on making distance, I could have launched yesterday at 6 pm to paddle for about four hours…but honestly, once I’m “settled down” on a beach, I hate paddling a second time at night. The hikers came back last night, talking to them a bit, they were actually from a French yacht anchoring in a previous deep bay.

I crossed over to the northern side of Beagle Channel after the Argentine-Chilean border and a larger fjord gap, where the channel was only 4-5 km wide. I found a most beautiful coast line with rocks and plenty of smaller and larger beaches, going slightly south west, it was fully sheltered from a non-existing wind.

I was passing the Yamana Navy station, waved up to the officer and chatted a few words. But sorry, it was way too good weather to even stop for an hour’s visit or such, or even to stay for the night!

But right after the navy station, the coast turned slightly north west, and the wind breezed up to around 15 knots – head wind, for sure…nothing too bad actually, and I knew the first glacier would be coming soon…with a beautiful bay for camping and anchoring for yachts.

Across the Navy station, there was one single yacht passing by, and a fishing boat came right out of the northern channel above Isla Gordon which I was entering. It was quite a choppy tidal race in there! But I was sneaking inside the eddy without problems.

And then the magnificent view of the first glaciers…one of them was flowing down almost to the coast! What a view already from the water…could I make a short hike to the base of the glacier tongue?

Inside Caleta Olla close to the glacier, I found two yachts anchoring, and saw a dinghy on a rocky bank, indicating the guys are out for a hike to the glacier…I want to go there, too! The headwind was nasty anyway…I had paddled enough for today, hadn’t I? Excuses…but this glacier was looking too tempting!

I landed a bit earlier ahead of the dinghy, and put up my tent, and before I could get changed, three people came back from the hike to the glacier. They were Italians, and told me where I could find the secret entrance to the path…actually, without the yachting people telling me, I’d have looked some where else!

I packed a small back pack with sat phone, VHF and GPS, plus some drink and snacks, and some gloves -it might be cold at the glacier! But actually, I was sweating my ass off, hiking eventually in t-shirt only, as the path went only uphill…but soon I had the most magnificent view!

To the back, the narrow fjord with the anchoring bay opened up from above, with a wide wetland between the fjord and the glacier, a tan color river flowing in wide curves to the sea. Amazingly, it was not a glacier river, as I soon saw a lagoon under the glacier, when I was climbing higher! It was the most beautiful view you can imagine – a large lagoon with a few smaller ice bergs floating around, the huge glacier with it’s white and blue color flowing into the lagoon, the wetland and the fjord – as I was on the highest point, I stopped hiking, and just sat down to enjoy! I tried calling my boyfriend and my son, but no one picked up the phone to share this magnificent view with me 🙁

On my climb up, I heard the glacier calving with some thunder noise – never paddle too close to a glacier tongue! But this lagoon was not for paddling…but I’ll be paddling in one later in Fjordland! The path may have ended up there or not, going down to the lagoon was a loooong way, and though I wouldn’t have minded a bath in the freezing water, I didn’t think it would have given me a better view…so I let it be for today with this viewing highlight, and turned around to find my way back…thank goodness I had my GPS running on my way up! Strange enough, the way back seemed to go somewhere else…maybe there are many ways to the glacier view…I was eventually happy back down, with wet shoes on the soaking path. It was the softest moss you could think of walking on, but it was mostly wet…my Gore Tex TEVA shoes held up!

All in all, I didn’t regret to have stopped that early today, 46,6 km are not too bad any way. This first glacier I simply couldn’t let go without  a closer look! But I’m not sure if I’d have made it if I hadn’t seen the yachties with their dinghy…