Pos: here
Loc: Estero Policarpo
Acc: tent
Dist:31,4 km
Start: 10:10 End: 17:35

Ha, what a ride! Nothing for beginners…but I made a basic navigation mistake…being a “safety conscious” girl I crossed shortest way in a direct line to next point on the shore, means paddling first about 13 km due east, then north east along the coast.
I shouldn’t have done that…knowing the shore is plain steep rock, I could have assumed that with today’s seas the backwash is horrible, creating a bad clapotis sea kilometers off the coast…if I’d have crossed in a direct line to the Estero where I wanted to find a camp site, I’d have stayed way more offshore and probably would have avoided those very lumpy seas…but maybe there would have been other pleasures.

I got nice help from the two young Navy guys Juan and José on launching, thanks, and thanks again to everybody at San Pedro for hosting me so long!!

It was, like on the landing, due to the swell not the easiest launch. I had to pack my boat 45 degrees vertical on the rocks, and then carefully slip the heavy loaded kayak down on the shallow flooded ledge, timing it right with just NO swell. I was watching  out that   the boat doesn’t slip too fast, then stepping in the water just on a bit of swell lifting the boat up on the flooded ledge and keeping the boat from slipping down while jumping on it…all backwards, for sure (yes, Oscar!), The guys took care the boat didn’t slip down too fast , which was a great help. Otherwise, I may have had to tie it to myself, just in case it would slip too fast, and I couldn’t hold it, …then I’d jump in behind 🙂

Paddling the first km was quite big 3-4 meter swell, but with few breakers after I had been waiting this morning long enough, white caps eventually disappeared. Luckily, I didn’t catch any! The wind out of wnw was nicely pushing, some current was also with me, and I made good speed with some fun paddling. But I felt I hadn’t done anything the last 5 1/2 days…it took quite a while for my shoulders to take up the rhythm again.

After about 8-9 km, the current was hitting some counter current, and I had the first clapotis wave area in the middle of the sea…strange…but after this, the big swell flattened out a bit down to 2-3 meters, and the breakers disappeared completely. But now it slowed down…3.4 km/h instead of the 6-7 km/h earlier! And I felt after this big ride some light sea sickness already, especially when it was drizzling rain in between clear areas, and the view of land was gone then…I’m just not used to big swell any more! But no throwing up.

Time to get rid of some polar fleece head gear, and to drink and eat my breakfast oats! It usually helps when I’m just a bit sea sick.

I paddled closer to the shore, to turn north east soon, and the ugly dance started…big reflective waves from the bare steep rocky coast…what else? I could have paddled a few km more out again, but then again,I am too stubborn to do that, and tell myself if you are here now, you have to paddle through it…actually, it’s not dangerous, just ugly, and helps to get more sea sick…I was fighting it quite a bit. But no throwing up…this time. I noticed, the water was very warm, which made me dip my hands in quite frequently, as the water was warmer then the wind chill. And it was much more salty than in the Fjords, for sure, which made me spit out quite often… 🙁

Eventually, I could turn into east into the shelter of the Estero. I had a look at two other beaches which a friendly blog reader was marked for me as “sheltered”, but I assumed on this coast side it can’t be “sheltered”…The first one about 4,5 km before the Estero had huge boulders, and though a bit calmer water upfront, it was still not possible to land safely there today. But I could conveniently pee sitting still in my boat without getting a wash into the open zipper.The second marked beach was an even worse possibility to land and not even worth a closer look.

This beach I’m camping on now was marked by Karel’s Isreali friends who had camped here on their trip 2009. It is very sheltered from the swell on low tide, but on low tide huge boulders are in the way to land. I turned around first, and had another look further into the bay. but nothing there at all! And the tide will be very high tonight…So I paddled back to that sheltered boulder beach, and made a careful landing at some just flooded boulders where I could easy stand on them and unload the boat fully. Then I could drag it carefully over the big bouders and over a huge pile of sea weed up to safty from the high tide.

It is always a balancing act on rocks, more or less slippery. Walking on kelp piles is ok when it’s fresh kelp, but on the older already rotten stuff higher up it’s just yucky and slimy and pulling yucky strings…but I had to cross there a couple of times. I am walking as carefully as possible, no need for a broken leg or worse, being by myself!

The quite big grassy spot high on top of the kelp high tide line was looking inviting, but it was not. More big boulders, logs and plastic of all kind was hidden under it, and I was really wondering how a 3-man tent from the Israeli guys found a level spot here.

For myself, I chose a smaller boulder area to the left, and then got the idea to use that clean whole fish box and two big plastic canisters as a sleeping platform, plus a long wide log as a “kitchen” on my side! Worked well…well, apart from my tent corners, which were on the ground down between the big boulders, and I am living about 40 cm higher inside my tent than usual…not that easy! You have to be flexible…but I think I could camp worse! At least I have a horizontal flat sleeping platform!