Pos: here
Loc: Foro El Rincón
Acc: tent
Dist: 57 km
Start: 7:45 End: 18:45

Last night I forgot to mention I noticed my rudder was badly responding. I found out I had to replace a worn out tubular piece in my rudder – nothing new for me, but glad I did it before the crossing.
And as I was just wondering weather to land or not to land that Santiago may find me that night, I was floating on a dead calm sea texting messages on my cell to Santiago, as one of the very rare small breakers caught me with an open spray deck and open dry suit zipper…well, the decision was made to land! Not that much water in the suit, but the cockpit was full…
I do have a well working electrical pump by Blue Water Kayak works (Thanks, Mark!), but rather keep the battery power for emergency. So turning the kayak on the side to pour the water out on landing was easiest.
The last car disappeared out of that area, and I could make camp with a relatively short pulling up of the kayak.

This morning was the crossing, nothing special for me as it was 57 km only. Forecast were light headwinds from the 8’o clock position, nothing I could not handle…

After the first 5 km or so I almost passed an open fishing boat with 5 men, but didn’t really bother to stop by, sorry…maybe with talking Spanish it may have been nice and providing some information. They were probably wondering where I was going!

The day went on, and the headwind increased from ok 10 kn to annoying 15 kn…slowing me down from my regular speed of 5-6 km/ h to 3-4 km/ hr…and making no break possible without being pushed back with 3 km/h!

Well, I was paddling really hard all day, keeping my GPS ETA (estimated time of arrival) and speed by hard fighting within an option to land with daylight….if I can make it, I rather land with light – understandably! This crossing proved to be not a piece of cake, but to be hard work. But I’m used to working hard…so I kept on fighting!

At some point a strange big navigational sign showed up in the middle of the water, almost of lighthouse size…I wouldn’t have been surprised if a lighthouse keeper would have waved down to me out of the Bel Ètage, shouting: “Freya, are you all right? The Prefectura has just called if you were all ready passing by!” No Prefectura boat for today…

But the real lighthouse showed up about 20 km before on the horizon – Isla Trinidad was so flat I could barely spot a shadow of it, actually passing only 2 or 3 km away.

No whales on the crossing, just the odd seal sniffing behind me just as I spotted the lighthouse!

Once having the lighthouse in the bearing, I was able to increase my speed again to 5-6 km/ hr, and saw my ETA going down…thank goodness. Must have been the turning of the tide as well after lunch. I did not eat much, as I hated to be blown back wards!

But a few soon getting older apples with some moldy spots needed to be eaten – have you ever poked your finger in one of those rotten spots? An easy, but yucky way to get it away…and then peeling the apple in beaver style :-))

I had to avoid a few low water reefy spots with breakers, and gave one a wide berth – I thought…still caught one from the side…ugly!

I eventually arrived in sight to spot at least sand and dunes all over – thank goodness…but my landing spot would have included an about 500 m walk inland to find dry land on high tide… :-((

I spotted a piece of dune about 400 m to the right sitting closer behind the water line, and decided to walk with my already shouldered heavy gear bags to that spot. I planned to simply paddle my kayak to that dune then! Well, easiest would have been to paddle the still fully loaded kayak there…but the best decisions some times come too late. At least launching tomorrow morning would be easier.

I could pull up my kayak between some solid mud banks on a slip of sand, and made camp in really last light on my dry piece of dune – fully worn out for that day of hard paddling!

I boiled a pot of rice, looked into weather and maps for tomorrow, but the “real” update had to wait, sorry…but until NOW! 🙂