Pos: here
Loc: Isla Londonderry
Acc: tent
Dist: 25,6 km
Start: 6:00 End: 13:20

I forced myself out of bed this morning, though sleeping with the window wide open, it felt still too warm inside the room, being used to sleeping outside…my body was still aching every where. I’d need some more rest! But he wind was good enough today, so I have to go!

I heard my host José and his son being still up at 1 am last night when I got up for a quick pee – when do they sleep? José was so nice to help me getting away this morning, but I hope he went straight back to bed…at least I would have done…

I started with crossing the wide “cross road” of channels to the northern side of Isla Londonderry, with already a reasonable 12-15 knots head wind. It will be hard work the next days…the long term forecast says today breezing up in the afternoon (as usual..), tomorrow noon/ afternoon at least still under 20 knots headwind  (I may sleep in tomorrow!), then probably two rest days with over 20 knots headwind…there is only so much I can take…Monday may be around 12-15 knots only again. And then? At some point, I’ll head north east…

Isla Londonderry’s north side was mostly low, with plenty of beaches, but not mmany obvious camp sites. I played “spotting possible campsites” again all day, with an occasional pee and rest stop to have a closer look. Not many chances really… all beaches are looking the similar.

What catches my eye here, amazingly so far only in this channel, is the load of rubbish on the beaches! So far, I experienced fjord land beaches as being all free of rubbish of all kind and really looking so clean I even not dare myself to throw away my chocolate wrappings, so why are the beaches in this channel so dirty? It must be the current floating the rubbish in, but from where, when the rest was clean? No idea…but it is really ugly!

The game from yesterday continued: hiding behind the tiniest nook and cranny of the smallest headlands, playing with the kelp. But at some point, the coast was turning that much south and the wind was turning so much more west/ north west, that there was no more hiding possible…and the white caps were increasing with the wind nearing 20 knots.

I was stopping in a reasonable looking bay behind an island, and decided to wait for half an hour or so…some times it is only the rain squall increasing the wind. I already checked the camping possibilities…the precise forecast said increasing winds towards the night, not decreasing any more. So I decided after a short nap in actually a brief sunny spell on a rock to call it a day here, I was dead tired any way.

My campsite is in a small inlet behind a small island, on some humid low grass which looks like it is not getting flooded every day, according to the amount of duck shit and the grass quality. Some other also very green grassy looking spots are rather quite soaking, and I’d not trust those on high tide.

My last tidal station spot in my GPS was for Bahia Ushuaia, not sure about how much more it is shifting here already. But looking outside for four hours now doesn’t show any flooding of this muddy inlet so far! Hopefully the night high water is no different…I’m not quite sure about the water level change in this area at all. Paddling all day shows a tidal line, but it never seems to reach that line all day…maybe the small tidal changes come at a different schedule here.  As long as I don’t have to move my tent again…and as long as my tent floor is not soaked through.

I need sleep now, long, and undisturbed…