Pos: here
Loc: Caleta Olivia
Acc: Martin & Daniela’s house
Dist: 64 km
Start: 7:05 End: 20:15

A friendly young paddler from the Club Nautico agreed last night to see me before his work starts to carry my boat with me down to the beach which was sitting besides my tent at the club area parking lot. Thanks!

But there were eventually for sure as well a Prefectura car with two guys plus the Prefectura reporter from yesterday to see me off this morning and to take some pictures…so basically there were enough hands around!

I had to hurry to break camp after we dropped my kayak in the middle of the dry beach, as the tide came in quickly on the shallow sandy beach. But it took a while to carry my heavy gear bags down myself, and loaded my boat
quickly. Still I had to pull it up once…

It was again sunny and no to light wind into the right direction, I really can’t complain about the weather theses days!

Aiming for Punta Marqués, I expected some tidal rips as announced, but it was not too bad. On the southern side, I saw one of the strangest locations for a sea lion colony I have ever seen – instead of lying around nicely on rocks high above the tide line, these ones were literally sticking almost vertically to a very steep cliff base – do they have suction cups on their flippers?

The usual gang of seals increased in numbers around me, as I was floating and watching the spectacle on the cliff base. Yes, I’m soon leaving your territory, guys! But allow me a few pics, please…

As soon as I could get rid of the snuffling trail behind me, I stopped for breakfast, afloat as usual. Oats with sugar and milk powder plus cold water. Always a pleasure! Thanks for the recipe, Peter 🙂

Two more small headlands came up, until the coast turned into the endless straight boring steep gravel beach again, which is so scary to land on if you have to…

But today the swell was really low, and as the tide went down, the landing always looked manageable. But I was aiming for Caleta Olivia some 60 km away, where I knew a keen paddler and kayak school owner named Martin Ortega would be waiting for me. As it was strong wind forecasted for tomorrow, I resisted the temptation to land on two possible spots before Caleta Olivia, as the camping on that beach would be not pleasant either, in strong winds tomorrow plus the noisy highway 3 all the time close to the beach.

So all over a boring, unpleasant paddle along a monotonous steep gravel beach with heavy traffic noise close by.

The beach got some shallow sandy reefs about 10 km before Caleta Olivia, which made the sea breaking earlier and in some surf lines, before hitting the steep beach. Not really inviting looking from offshore either…apart from two narrow reef gaps where I could have come in reasonable easy.

But I was hoping for an easy landing in Caleta Olivia, as there was a bay and an anchoring area marked on the chart.

I paddled, and paddled, still heavy reef breakers guarding the coast, scary to see from offshore. But my GPS showed exactly (well, this time…) where the reef stopped and the deep water entrance with unbroken water started…just paddle patiently and wait for the almost dog leg entrance to open up. I eventually turned in, relieved to be able to land safely.

Martin came out to me in his kayak, but I saw him only after I turned in through the reef gap already, but thanks goodness, at least a local guide who knew where exactly to land. It is hard to see in the low evening sun!

But my expected calm landing spot turned out on highest tide again to be still quite trashy, as Martin, who went in first, got caught by a dumping wave, capsized and bailed out before he eventually got hold of his (empty) kayak to pull it up.

About 6-8 people from the Prefectura and reporters were watching with cameras and talking, but all of them had dry shoes on…

It was my turn to land, I stuck my legs out already, still afloat safely before the dumper, put my helmet on, waited for a reasonable wave passing and timed it right to jump off the boat. Luckily Martin was wet anyway in his wet suit, and was standing on the steep water’s edge and was able to catch my bow on landing. All filmed by the TV reporter and carefully
watched by dry shod the Prefectura guys..

Plus a Prefectura boat was out there, too, for sure, with guys in wet suits, but it was only coming into sight as I was already preparing for the tricky landing…but sorry, there is no chance for them, despite being in wet suits, to help me on this kind of scary tricky landing from the boat!

But if there wouldn’t be a reception committee like this where I could assume must be a relative easy and safe landing, there would have been the harbor 4 km up the coast…I’d rather have landed there, actually…

I was dead tired again, but agreed to Martin’s invitation to stay in his house, as I expected the day off tomorrow with a storm coming up, which was very right!

We loaded my gear and boat on his camper van – yes, a nice Argentine one with even something like three kayak racks on the roof – and drove the short way to town to his house. I’m always most scared about my kayak andmy gear driving with people here :-), but we arrived safely.

Martin is running a fitness center “Gimnasio Albatros” plus a kayak school “Kayak Aventura Caleta Olivia”, so he was a sporty busy guy, but unfortunately neither him nor Daniela, his wife, speak much English. But we understand each other! Thanks for hosting me!

I fell into bed dead tired after a hot shower,which took – Argentinean patience required, about 1/2 hr to get working, but who cares? Tomorrowwould be off and I can sleep in…