Pos: here
Loc: just after Valeria del Mar
Acc: tent
Dist: 50km
Start: 7:30 End: 17:45

Great sunny day, lovely following winds, dead calm sea in the morning,slightly roughening up a little during the day. Surf is low, but still mostly wet to launch… 🙂

So all as easy and nice as it can be with a day’s paddle close to a sandy beach…still I had a BIG watch dog all day in sight – a 12-15m boat from the Prefectura Naval de Mar del Plata decided to have me as a practice target, and met me right at Punta Médar.
Manned with six guys! Either I’m a VIP and should be honored, or (the few) Argentinean tax payer have too much money…well, thanks anyway for your presence, guys! I’d rather feel honored about so much attention…

As soon as they spotted me, the decided to launch a zodiac with three guys to have a chat. All very friendly (and probably very curious as well…), and the chat was even in English!

Later, the big boat came that near I decided to have a trip around, to meet and show to the other curious three guys as well, video camera on, photos taken from both sides – them and me!

Now I luckily found a beach camp side with a big bush – to be able to hide behind while having a shower and changing! You never know how good the binoculars are when BIG BROTHER is watching you :-)) My planned first skinny dip in the sea will have to wait then…(probably until Peru or Ecuador anyway…- the sea is freezing cold! Maybe 15-16 degrees or such…)

Ok, now they are anchoring out there right across my campsite…actually, tomorrow night (I assume they’ll stay with me until Mar del Plata…) please I’d love to get dinner served on the beach after I land! Or even better I get an invitation on board to stay for the night – hot shower included?

Another pleasant playful thing not to get bored with each other until Mar del Plata would be to wake-surf the Prefectura boat all day – they just need to drive in the right speed ahead of me…but I probably would get an exhaust-poisoning after that exercise…and surfing my 80-90 kg boat is not much fun anyway.

Ok, when I safely made it with the VIP escort to Mar del Plata, I pay you a visit in your Prefectura office to thank you for your presence! But then I’ll be freshly showered and well dressed…for some nice blog pictures!

When I was thinking now I’d need to fill up my fresh water bags I felt sorry I didn’t take the chance to do this with the Prefectura boat being close…so I had to surf-land at a house where I previously spotted some life – not very easy in an off-season holiday town! All shut and seemingly dead.
The caretaker of a closed restaurant was so friendly to understand my stumbled Spanish about the need of some fresh water and offered me the garden hose.
I was close to strip for a shower right in his backyard! But the tiny freshwater shower on the beach later had to be again good enough until Mar del Plata! Thank goodness I’m having a contact already there – see you soon, Dolores! 🙂