here
Loc: south of Bahia Tribune
Acc: tent
Dist: 41,7 km
Start: 8:05 End: 17:20

I forgot to tell another water bed story – the night before I camped at Puerto Eden, I was in my tent in this high grass again, but with a sandy, dry underground…still, after the last experience of floating in my tent, I am poking around high tide next me on the ground, in case it may happen again…and it just felt as wobbly and cold as last time! Shit again, I thought! But I was only poking in my half empty water bag, laying close besides me for a night’s sip of water…

In Puerto Eden, I had for about one hour at the police man’s office internet access via a modem stick he was so nice to lend me, as Puerto Eden had a cell phone sat antenna, but no internet wifi sat antenna. The modem stick had it’s limitations, and I didn’t get far apart from trying to make it work. If I’d only have bought in Punta Arenas already my own sim card…but who would have thought I’d need it already here? I’ll get one in Puerto Montt for the last four weeks and the beginning of the second leg in September. The main office computer was also online, but as at 6 pm work was finished, I had to leave as well :-(.

Next time on chosing a landing spot in a foreign village where no one is expecting me, I’ll try to hit the school, police office or church, as those people there should be the the most “civilized” regarding hospitality, responsiveness and equipment.

I tried to find a main harbor, but almost every house along the inhabited coast line, which may have been 3-4 km long, had it’s own smaller or larger landing site or wooden jetty, but the brand new public ferry port was just so inviting, and a big house on top of the hill was the church. The school was the long new building with the red roof, just beside the police office on almost the other side of the bay. The police officer seems to do the Navy job as well, as a fisherman’s wife came just in when I was working to tell of her husband’s boat’s schedule, which the officer was typing into his computer.

But I was eventually doing well with my hostel guys helping me with a shower, finding a washing mashine and with the charging of my batteries! They all behaved friendly and nicely, no drinking party…amazingly, the Saturday night was reasonable quiet!

Generally, the people were all greeting friendly toward me, but no one showed much interest in me or my kayak. If I’d be speaking Spanish, I could be interested in *them* first…obviously, quite a few kayaks are coming occasionally through here.

At 5 am, I woke by the noise of the local chicken stable, which didn’t stop, until I put in my ear plugs…I liked to sleep a bit longe this morning, as I fell asleep due to the battery charging time only at midnight!

Accordingly I was quite tired today on paddling, but I didn’t want to take a full rest day (yet). I felt somehow out of place in Puerto Eden, the living standard is simply not what an European person is used to be, even after almost half a year in South America. And the weather is still unusually good!

Though it was announced under 5 knots head winds today, it was temporarily 10-15 knots, when a fat cloud field came through with a bit of rain. I was first not too sure which side of the channel I should paddle, but the eastern side had way more landing options, in case I’d land early…I was proud I left out a few magnificent bays and beaches already and kept on pushing, but at the second long white small pebble beach I could not resist any more to stop – dry, clean, level camping! Tht’s what I need! If I’d not be that tried, I could have nicely made a camp fire…another day. Beaches seem to be easier to find the more I’m getting north, and soon I can pre-check better on Google Earth as well. The pictures have less clouds on top, and the fjord canyons are not so deep and dark green any more, on the images that you can *see* eventually something again!

I met the ferry coming from Puerto Montt going south about 20 km after Puerto Eden! As I was just crossing the channel, I was very close, and all people on deck were waving at me! Probably all tourists…they had a continuous travel guide guy on speakers explaining the environment…maybe I should have radioed the captain…”And now, here you see passing by as close as we could get her the world’s most famous sea kayaking lady on her circumnavigation around South America! This makes 20 $ extra per person!” 😉

When I was already on my pebble beach, a big freighter was passing by, and about 5 min after he was out of sight, the waves it made came in…starting with an eerie noise of the moving stones on the sea’s ground first, and then quite some lapping waves helping to round the small stones even more. Interesting noise!

Dinner was spaghetti with tomatoe sauce – I was shopping some sachet with “tomatoe salsa”, which was obviously just ketchup, plus a light red sachet with some more spicy red stuff which turned out to be hot chilli sauce – uhhhh, I put too much on my spaghetti with tomato sauce pot! But no way I’d throw it away…a bit of butter and milk powder too the main heat away, but still…it was quite a hottie!