Pos: here
Loc: Isla Atilio
Acc: tent
Dist: 50,5 km
Start: 8:15 End: 17:45

The night was windy at my camp in the river mouth, maybe 15-20 knots. Though I appreciated the wind while putting up camp to get my soaking wet tent dry fast, the mix of eventually rain and wind sandblasted the poor tent for the first time, and in the morning the whole tent was covered with sticky sand. Shaking, shaking…sand is not my favorite camp site surface, but such a place always looks so nice…

It was still very windy on launching, all southerly, but I could imagine what the strong wind all night had done to the sea. I could see it just out of my beach, as I already had to overcome a belt of surf running into the shallow river mouth bay. Very wet! I had to fight quite a bit to get out and around the corner. Well, didn’t I yesterday complain about not enough action on this water?

There was enough “action” today on the strong following wind with the whipped up sea! It was about 1,5-2 m following waves, and they also liked to break here and there. Some fun challenge at the beginning, but having that all day? Originally I wanted to paddle direct line, enjoying the push of the following wind, outside Isla Canalad and Isla Atilio, to find a camp spot somewhere at the end of Isla Atilio or at the Islas Gala.

At the westernmost point of Isla Canalad I decided to turn in – no way to ride this stuff all day. It was still more than 15 knots following wind, and what the still strong tide was doing to the waves, I couldn’t really tell, as it was before and after high tide at 11 am rough, but it was probably not making it better!

I paddled into the Canal Salqueman south of Isla Atilio to the east, and was leaving the beautiful sandy Caleta Cordovez to my right. 1 pm was really too early to stop! Still, there were quite some waves with breakers, but slowly getting lower and less, until I was able to turn north north west around the corner of Isla Atilio into the calm Canal Frodden. I was hoping for a nice camp site there, but soon realized this is a rocky coast!

I checked on a wide river mouth which had a flat tent site on the very top of the beach, but I’d have to drag the kayak up for about 100m over sharp rocks on low tide. No, there would be something better coming up…

The “better” were plenty of huge granite rocks, where I could really choose which one was the biggest and best to land on and to get my boat high and dry. Nice place! And it was sunny…I took the opportunity to take my rudder apart, which was a bit blocked the last days. I cleaned everything off,  quite some gravel and a long piece of grass was stuck inside the gap, and put in a new blade, as the locking notch of the old one was loose, which probably caused the spring not to pop the blade out. All good again…good to have spare blades.

What a difference a dry, sunny and clean camp site makes for my mental well being…hope that tomorrow’s following wind is not that strong again! But I realize I’m blessed for the next days with the southerly wind…so far I actually couldn’t complain about my direction going north regarding the wind direction – but only from the point where I was turning northwards into Fjordland. This was at the souther Navy station which I didn’t visit. Before going west, it was literally a pain in the ass, fighting strong headwinds almost all days …

The only pain I’m having now are the knuckles of my fingers which are swollen every night. A good massage with some good hand cream helps a bit, but a good rest would be better…soon.