Pos: here
Loc: Bahia Snug
Acc: tent
Dist: 45,4 km
Start: 6:35 End: 16:45

Kiko drove me back to the landing spot yesterday, thanks again! Sorry I already fell asleep on the drive… I put up my tent and fell really asleep around 10.30 pm. Still too late for me, especially after the other nights online and having dinner with friends. This meant for today, despite low winds, I was dead tired to paddle. 45 km only, and then a large bay with a big river was lurking. the next bay like that would have been 15 km further, and no idea if in between would be a good campsite. The wind freshened up later in the afternoon as well, so it was time to call it a day.

My boat is loaded to the max with food as well, but luckily there is little tide, so that I don ‘t have to walk miles inland if I have to land on low tide like the last weeks in Argentina.

We decided it won’t be necessary to send a food parcel ahead, as the small shop in Puerto Eden, serving 200 people there, must have the basics. And I probably have way more food than needed to reach Puerto Eden! Water is as usual available everywhere, so the space I usually use for that is free for food. I carry now up to 10 l water, which would last for maximum four days. And there will be two “Hotel Navy” on the way until Puerto Montt…hope the families there are as happy about a visitor as the others were!

I did the luxury again to shop for apples, bananas, carrots, avocados, cherries, grapes, plums…and all found space some how some where. Ok, this time I even strapped a food bag to the back deck, which I’d never do in rough water conditions.

But the water here is calm, just a few choppy wind waves, and landings usually easy. and amazingly the food, especially the fruit, disappears fast…

The first half of the day I was paddling in the complete shelter of the coast, going south west, with a north westerly low wind.

At Cabo Froward, a huge massive and impressive rocky mountain, 920 m high and the southernmost point of mainland America, the shelter disappeared, turning north west. But it was not too bad today. The Cape had a big metal frame cross on top, and a light house at the bottom. One more day paddling, and the Magellan Strait will become narrower again, and will turn more and more north.

Ships were around en masse, about 6-8 fishing boats, one even was from Puerto Montt, and a zodiac serving hiking tourists. I saw four people, two times two people, and a single person hiking along the beach south of Cabo Froward, going back to probably Cabo San Isidra, where there is kind of a hostel and that is the furthest one can drive with a 4-wheel drive. This must be a popular trip with the zodiac service in some way. But no sail boats today!

It was mostly dry all day, now it’s raining, and I’m cozy in my brand new tent! This one, again a solid “Hilleberg Stanka”, has added “snow flaps”, or better here “sand or rock flaps”, where I can add some weight to make the tent more stable and wind proof in heavy winds. I should have known about those being available already earlier! This is very comfortable, just shovel some sand or gravel around on the flaps, and the tent inside has no draft at all, and is way more wind stable as well. And if I may encounter again 130 knots wind like on Isla Deceit…no, those times should be hopefully over!

And, for sure, I jumped today out of a complete dry dry suit…what a luxury! The Kokatat Gore Tex expedition dry suit is really the greatest piece of kit, but five months of hard (ab)use like I gave it, wore the old one out on too many spots, and even gluing holes was not possible any more, as the whole fabric was soaking through too early in the last weeks, especially around the hips and butt, rubbing at the seat and backrest all day. But it is still ok for some easy going day paddles!

I decided to carry now two lap tops, the new one I eventually got sent from Denmark, and which Peter managed to configure to my sat phone online yesterday. But guess on which laptop I’m writing…it started on the second try again!