Pos: here
Loc: Puerto Oscura
Acc: tent
Dist: 32,1 km
Start: 8:50 End:16:05

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

Eventually on the water again! We felt well, the visibility was ok, the sea definitively went down compared to what we saw all the other days! The launch through the low surf was easy, and we felt great to be afloat again! The first hour went so fast, the swell was still high and pushing, no wind…until around 9.30 a low to moderate *headwind* – yes, headwind for the change! picked up, and broke the now lower swell into quite some choppy seas.

Now it was not that much pleasure any more with having great progress…we were slowing down from good 6,5 km average to almost 4,5 km…well…and we were hoping to reach more today than only Puerto Oscura! But it was already 2.15 pm when we were arriving there, and spotted a nice sandy beach at the end of the deep bay. But as there were also many houses, and we love to have it quiet, we decided to try two more beaches “next door” – a tiny sandy one, very protected looking on Google Earth, but which was fringed with rocks, and Caleta Mala, which had rocks only…

Very rarely I like to turn around, but this time we opted to paddle those 2 km back to Caleta Oscura, as the next “safe” bay Caleta Maitencilla is more than 18 km away and we’d land just before sunset only. At least this small “extra” loop turned up our mileage to over 30 km for today…otherwise it would be looking embarrassing with 25 km km only…

So we made a nice low surf landing into the river mouth of Caleta Oscura, and found actually the whole small village looking deserted. Eventually, two young couples from Santiago having a nice weekend in the holiday houses showed up, who spoke some nice English. They also showed us some fresh water tanks where we could refill our water bags. Thanks!

I had to reseal my damaged bow, amazingly there was still water leaking through despite a good looking repair…but hopefully NOW not any more!

Now, honestly, I still feel a bit worn from just this short day paddling, but who wonders after four quite sick days…it will be better by the day!