Pos: here
Loc: Isla Llahuen
Acc: tent
Dist: 40,3 km
Start: 8:45 End: 16:25

I was almost trapped this morning – due to my early afternoon landing last day around 1 1/2 hour after high tide, I didn’t really expect the lowest tide in the early morning would display a wide belt of huge rocky boulders blocking the way to the open water…but they were all round and slippery enough to drag the boat over them without much problems or damage. Still, my poor baby…the boat’s bottom would probably look much better if I’d have a paddling partner to carry the boat from and to the water. Well, things are getting used…

It was a dry, mostly sunny day, with a light to moderate friendly breeze from south west. 40 km were actually not really enough paddling for such a good day, but the distance to Punta Chulao from where I’d paddle on Tuesday 40 km across the bay of Canal Comau to Punta Huron was just about 83 km, and I was not really up to two times 60 km, but rather split the distance in three times 40 km.

So early landing again, this time on a moderate steep fully sandy beach. But miracles came true, at 7.30 pm tonight, around the time I’d be launching next morning 12 hrs later, a wide belt of rocky boulders came out of the water here also …but fortunately there was a tiny gap where I could launch almost from the sand. Boulder climbing and dragging the kayak over them is not my favourite way of launching!

The day I was passing quite some fishing boats, all of them floating close to shore, and having divers down on long air tubes powered by a generator, probably collecting mussels. The same style of diving I once saw in a more primitive way before Puerto Eden, where I was not sure what was happening there!

More and more single huts and smaller villages scattered the coast, which is mostly now friendly flat and accessible. The very lonely times are over! I even had to look for a beach not too close to a hut, still two curious men were “just passing by” my tent, whistling and talking, that I couldn’t help sticking my head out of my tent to say “hola”. I wonder if they were surprised to see a single woman?

I was not sure if I’d be passing Isla Llahuen outside or inside, but inside Bahia Pumalin I assumed would be even more houses, and outside was a sandy beach lurking in the sun shine. So an early landing again, and relaxing two hours more in the afternoon.

I’m camped on a nice green meadow, with lots of old dry cow pads. Hope I’m not getting any more visitors tonight…