Pos: here
Loc: Yacht Club Antofagasta
Acc: tent
Dist: 0 km

Tomorrow:
Estimated landing: Isla Santa Maria
Estimated starting time: Right after sunrise
Estimated landing time: Well before sunset

We did well having another day off! We caught up on sleep, and enjoyed our privacy in a calm surrounding off the airport noise. It was very nice at Pedro’s house, but the planes on the runway, jointly used by the public airport and the military F16’s made quite in impressive noise during the day. The window panes were singing each time a plane was starting, the glasses in the cupboards also. Fortunately, it was quiet at night!

Our tent site at the Yacht Club on a small piece of lawn is quite an oasis in the desert here! It is very calm, despite being right in the city, and the lawn feels like home. On the airbase, there was not a single piece of green to be seen, just dusty desert ground. The houses here usually even have the laundry machine standing outside, no problem with almost no rain ever.

Here, our piece of lawn obviously needs regularly water, and we were spotting a bunch of sprinklers belonging to an artificial and automatic irrigation system. We were asking the guard, and he said at 2 am it will start…hola! Not possible to switch it off…well, maybe we’ll forget a few pots or water bags outside…

I even enjoyed a swim in the nice and clean pool of the Yacht Club, while Peter had a walk into town. It was not heated but about 18 degrees, so not too bad! It was really a refreshing pleasure after I had a nap in the the sun heated tent! We were almost the only people around in the whole club today, apart from the guard and a few people working.

The whole pool needed to be covered with a net against the birds – either against the many vultures sitting on the Yacht Club fence this morning, or against the many pelicans shitting on everything everywhere. Regarding that, the whole pool was really clean! Even when I had my goggles on…

The forecast for tomorrow has a little less high waves and less winds, so we are very likely to go. The unbroken harbor exit is quite narrow and looks a little scary today, but as usual good timing is crucial.