Pos: here
Loc: Caleta Villena
Acc: tent
Dist: 38,9 km
Start: 6:30 End: 15:50

There is only so much rain, wind, cold- and wetness, sore wind eyes, frozen feet and hands your body and mind can take…

This day had it all. First no wind and no rain, but frozen hands and feet. There was even 15 min of rising sunshine on the mountain tops! They were all freshly covered with snow already yesterday.
Then it was rain and still little wind, but as well still cold feet and hands. Soon the wind joined the rain and the rest, soring my eyes. My dry suit hood leaves barely a small visor to look out, still, you have to see!

Yes, there were a lot of positive things as well…first it is mostly calm water in Fjordland. A bit if tidal rips right at the beginning where the other fjord goes off were actually quite fun! And where ther is no calm water, I mostly can paddle inside the kelp belt. So not much danger from that side.

The kelp is good and bad together. It gives shelter, but unfortunately not always a clean way of water inside. So you paddle quite some time across, poking and hooking your bow and paddle into the stuff.

And there were about six whales around again! Mostly spouts, just a few times a piece of body and once a tail fluke. They are much smaller than the ones I saw in Argentine offshore!

Three freighters, one fishing boat, the yachts from the bay seem to have gone east, or are still in there. Today I heard the comment on my post one yacht guy wanted to “walk” over to my bay as I was camping just a few km east…hahaha, I’d like to see that person walking just a few hundred meters here in Fjordland…though the landscape between the bays seems to be not steep and a bit more light than usual. Still, this forest is as inaccessible as it can be. I was amazed the foxes could live in there..If he’d like to see me, he should have rather taken his dinghy!

Around noon, about an hour after the strong wind came up, I decided to call it a day, and was looking for a campsite inside Bahia “Good Luck”. The name was just wrong. It was the first time I jumped out of my boat about ten times to check the sites, and it was always nothing good…

Just when I had to decide I might as well continue along the coast, the weather improved to wind and no rain, decorated with warm hands and still frozen feet, even numb now.

At about 4 pm I found a good camp site high on nice flat gravel besides a noisy river. It was still early in the day, but there is only so much rain, wind, cold- and wetness, sore wind eyes, frozen feet and hands your body and mind can take.

The campsite would stay dry at night’s high tide, if the waves won’t crash and splash against my platform. And it has no wind protection. Making camp was in rain again, but I took good care to anchor my tent well. The snow flaps are all covered with gravel, so it will hold a few gusts. I felt like a kid in the sand box digging in the gravel. But there is nothing worse than if you have to walk out at night in storm and rain to fix your tent. I had some gut feeling the next day(s) will be ugly and I may have to take off again.

Soon Karel texted for tomorrow 20-30 knots all day, head winds, for sure. For Thursday even stronger winds…and heavy rain again. So far for the”walk in the park” in Fjordland.

There is only so much rain, wind, cold- and wetness, sore wind eyes, frozen feet and hands your body, mind and tent can take. AND I FUCKING HATE THIS WEATHER!!!