Mon 24/09-2012 Day 278

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Our camp at the balcony of the water sport club in Taltal

Pos: here
Loc: Watersport Club Taltal
Acc: tent
Dist: 38,1 km
Start: 7:50 End: 16:25

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

A calm night, easy launch, lovely day with low wind again. Life is good! Many headlands had many, many seals! Especially at Punta Taltal we really got spoiled with a massive load of seals and birds on a broad headland! Some of them felt they needed to take off when we were coming…or were we just too close? Sorry, guys…the swell is so low now it’s just a pleasure to watch close up…

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The beautiful seal rock at Punta Taltal

Taltal on Google Earth had not really an inviting beach, but we needed to go there to fill up with fresh water! We paddled through quite a huge fleet of moored fishing boats, on some of them a bunch of pelicans chose to be home. I just wonder how the boats are looking like after a few days with heavy bird’s digestion? We landed on an ugly narrow dirty city beach with some concrete walls in the background. Sure we could have camped there like clochards… but we preferred to just ask for water in a restaurant, where we could fill our bags in their bathroom. Thanks very much!

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The guys enjoyed sunning themselves

There was a clean white small tiny beach to be seen on Google Earth, and when we paddled past we saw a building looking like a public place, a bathroom or such, just to the right before Taltal. We decided to go there for the night!

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The small artificial, but beautiful bay at the water sport club in Taltal

Coming closer, Peter remembered to have read something about a Nautical Club at a single building – sure this was it! The beautiful sandy beach was artificially made, but who cares…we could land easy, and put up our tent on the wooden balcony of the clubhouse which was actually a just a container with some wooden roof and that balcony. All looked reasonable new, but no one was there to ask and all was locked.

We used the early afternoon time to do again a very necessary checkup on the gear, and could fix everything we needed to.

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Our camp at the balcony of the water sport club in Taltal

Later, a couple from the nautical club came to welcome us and to give a few instructions. Thanks we were now “officially” allowed to stay there! We had camped on worse places…a lovely view over Taltal bay, an own wooden balcony and own white beach, no noises…beautiful! They even had a fresh water hose, but the water came from a tank and the people said it was no good for drinking. Sure…we were filled up anyway! And it was probably short, also.

4 comments on “Mon 24/09-2012 Day 278

Ricardo Hoffmann

Dear Freya & Peter,
You are now paddling along Chile’s “Norte Grande” (great, mighty north). The name refers also to the huge & formidable geography, weather and tough living conditions, along the world´s driest desert. As formidable as your performance!
Best wishes

Randall Lackey

Nice to hear your fair weather is continueing. Its nice to be able to find a good campsite.I stayed on floating boat docks on empty lots along the river last week and they worked out well,with being able to put my boat on the dock and have my gear near me for the night. Love reading of your days on your adventure.Safe Paddling.
Randall

andre

Looks like your in a very nice area, and living like a modern robinson crusoe, with some modern benefits , enjoy !

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