Pos: here
Loc: behind Cabo Vigia
Acc: tent
Dist: 47,5 km
Start: 7:30 End: 19:10 1,5 hr break from 8.15 to 9.45 am

This computer is nerve wrecking…about 50 starting tries today! But no giving up…

Though forecasted and feeling the moderate to strong headwinds, the bay  in front me had no white caps, so I thought it can’t be that bad! Fresh as I was, and the tide would turn only at 8.30 am, so one hour with it, then the wind would go down soon any way…
But the tidedid not feel like it was pushing me, the head wind was strong, and I was crawling along for 45 min, until I rounded a small headland and decided to have a break, at least to have breakfast without getting pushed back wards.

If I’d received in time Karel’s weather update for this morning (which eventually came in tonight), I’d have known…but the span between 10 and 20 kn headwinds is a wide one!

I walked around a bit, but there was really not much to be seen on that beach! The only spot with wind shelter was behind my kayak, so I laid stretched out on the cobbles close to my boat for a small nap, right in my dry suit. It was just barely warm enough, my hands stuck under the arm pits.

At 9.45 am I decided the wind was a bit less, and rather than getting too cold I’d be working a bit harder on the water! But instead of 3-4 km/h on the first try now it was only 2-3 km/h …the tide was even more against me!

Almost after another half an hour, I had already spotted a nice place for another break, the wind really went down, so that I could at least get back up to 4-5 km/h, still slow, but against the here quite strong tide plus still moderate head wind there is not much more possible for me. But better than not going forward!

My lucky dolphins showed up again, and I watched a duck swimming in the small dumper’s zone – why is she there? At some point she may get caught – and she almost got caught, if she’d not used her wings to fly off the breaking wave crest! It looked so funny I was laughing out loud…if I could, as my throat is still no making proper sounds…but it’s better today.

The landscape was lovely, some reefs changed with beaches, always something to see. A car with waving people here, and then another car 15 km before Cabo Vigia.more than 120 km north of Puerto San Julian…

Four guys were playing with a very smoky camp fire when I came closer, and I was thinking this must be quite strange to make a fire on the open beach in this wind! And then I noticed why – they wanted attention and me to see them – the Prefectura on a Sunday afternoon trip! Quite a drive, guys!

But I didn’t land, as the tide was high and the beach was steep – we signaled if everything was ok (on dead calm water), and if I’d need water (on my fourth day after the last city…), and where my next position would be (I don’t know yet!) – so, all ok, no water needed, and I kept on paddling…see you in Puerto San Julian!

Cabo Vigia wanted a wide berth with long jutting reefs, but the seas are still calm, so breakers were easy to spot.

It is always amazing how you can feel the wind direction changing – the westerly off shore wind was quite warm, like someone kept an oven door open, and the easterly on shore wind was quite chilly, probably a temperature difference of 10 degrees C or more. And the wind changes from one second to the next – suddenly you feel it, blowing cold or hot!

As it was strong headwind for tomorrow, and the evening became quite calm, I decided to keep on paddling in those good conditions – well, as long as I had enough. I could have gone two hours more, but then I should have started around 10 am, which would have been more efficient, regarding the speed!

Plus it was the same again as last evening – you could see only about 500 m ahead, the rest was hidden in mirages and in the low sun. No idea what the coast line would  look like a couple km south, as my GPS map was in this area as imprecise as it could be. They could have been drawing anything – I was paddling “across land”, and when I was really hugging the coast, I was wide offshore…later south I saw already a note on the chart “not sufficiently surveyed”…yes, correct!

So I kept on paddling along a really boring reasonable flat beach, with steep sandy cliffs in the back ground. When it turned a little green, this was my sign to go in…I had enough for today! Not really km, but time in my kayak.

This beach was unfortunately pestered with flies, and it was time to deploy my secret weapon – my natural bug net! Means I untied my filthy unwashed hair, and the flies were at least off my face! Thank goodness for a good bug net in the tent…once in, and scraped all the flies inside the bug net off, there was no way to go out again! I had practiced that already in New Zealand with the biting sand flies! Those guy here were not really biting, but still very annoying!