Pos: here
Loc: Playa Talpo
Acc: tent
Dist: 65,1 km
Start: 5:20 End: 16:20

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

Our tent was as noisy in the night on our unsheltered camp spot as it can be, but earplugs did the job. We were launching on our “gently lapping” beach in first light, and were blown across the channel to the next headland in no time. There is nothing like a constantly following wind – well, if it doesn’t get almost too strong, like yesterday.

But it seems to be now always the same pattern – windy in the morning, calmer over lunch time, and breezing up strongly early afternoon. It is still the effect of the cold Humboldt current keeping the sea chilly with the land being heated up quite a lot now, especially the bare sandy desert we were paddling along the last weeks.

But today the swell between the islands, before we turned east to our beach. was already low when the strong wind started, so it was not as ugly as yesterday.

A fishing boat loaded with four young tourist guys were heading up the coast, it seems like a clever fisher man adds at least a bit to his budget offering tours here in this National Park area.

But the next boat we saw was no fishing boat, but the friendly Peruvian coast guard! It was only the second time in Peru we saw them on the water, different to the Chilean Navy…thanks, guys, for leaving us our privacy those other weeks and not playing geocache all the time!

So today we were even quite happy about their attention as a welcome distraction, and after taking heaps of pictures with six people on board they came closer to tell us they are having a present for us…ok, not too bad of a surprise!

It was still a bit rough in the channel where they met us, so we decided to get the present around the corner turning east, where the sea should be dead calm.

But there was the wind now…blowing us offshore if we’d be opting to cut only across the next bay. We really had to paddle hard to head against the 20-25 knots wind into the bay, to find a lee behind the still steep cliffs. This also means we surely would be landing on this Playa Talpo where we originally were also planning to land, and not to go into the next harbor.

The coast guard boat was probably noticing we had to seek shelter close along the cliffs, but with a manual depth measuring they also dared to come in close to hand over our present! Still I had to paddle out 500 m into the open wind zone again, where maneuvering close to the hard shell and high boarded coast guard boat was not too easy.

But they managed to drop me a bag with some food goodies, and two Pisco coast guard hats! This was a surprise! Just what we needed, as Peter had lost his had recently in the surf! Thanks a lot, coast guard from Pisco! This is an honourable gift, and it is actually quite honourable to get a gift at all!

The food goodie bag contained among a bunch of other things two US-Army MRE packs – “meals ready to eat”. A nice toy bag with reasonably edible food (well, mostly…) with a lot of trash left once you ate it all! I’m wondering how a whole army load is dealing with the trash such a one-man- parcel generates…and this is for ONE meal only. If you need three per day per person…at least we had something to play with this night! 🙂

We are still on schedule to arrive in Lima on Playa Pescadores on Thursday night. Four more days…