Tue 08/11-2011 Day 71

PB090459.JPG
Marcos Oliva day with me in front of the new to built foundation house

Pos: here
Loc: Puerto Deseado
Acc: Prefectura Puerto Deseado
Dist: 67,5 km
Start: 6:30 End: 19:00

It would be a long day, 65+ km to Puerto Deseado, no inviting stops. The map shows only gravel beach, steep and inaccessible, no real bays or headlands. The forecast showed seas of 1-2 m after the strong south wind and rain yesterday, means the dumper on those steep gravel beaches will be BIG. Nothing I would even want to think about trying to land on, especially not after my crash landing before Commodore Rivadavia on such a beach.

So I was packing my stuff in first light and started! I was reasonably rested after the day off, but had a bit of acough sitting deep in my chest, but nothing which weakened me…just keep warm! I had freezing feet the last paddling day, and hoped to get around that today.

The first 15 km went amazingly fast, though I was only expecting the first hour to be good, as the tide would turn against me at 7.30 am. But it seemed there was kind of a back eddy from the top of the bay of Cabo Blanco until Punta Guzmán, which I happily was riding on with 7-8 km/h, no problem, on reasonable flat water.

But Punta Guzmán came, not really point on the coast, but on land, where the 20 m high gravel beach only with no hinterland became some cliffs in the back ground – a bit more entertaining to look at! 🙂

But the tide now played up fully against me, and crawling along with 3-4 km/h was which I was doing for the next 20 km, plus paddling in steep wind against tide waves. The now strong following wind didn’t help much to push me, it just whipped the sea up…

All the time since I left the sheltered hook of Cabo Blanco, the steep gravel beach was a horrible vision to land, as much as I was looking for a change and a maybe a hook in the coast line or an improvement once the tide changed – it rather got worse…eventually I decided not to look at all any more at the trashy dumper, and to envision how to manage that one – you simply can’t do it safely.

There was only one tiny indention on the coast line with tiny improvement for a few meters with regard to landing possibilities, where there was a creative hut built on the exit of a salt lake. On lower seas, this would be a possible landing site there. But still nothing I was thinking off for today.

I was paddling along quite close to the dumper zone, as I thought there was the best sea conditions, but the all-day noise of the danger zone is hard to stand. It was like the coast was fenced with an electrical barbed wire you can’t overcome.

The seas got bigger by the hour as well, but fortunately not really HUGE, and though I had to paddle with concentration, I felt quite all right. If there wouldn’t be that sound and view of the dumper all day…

As there were only 25 km left to the safety of the first headland in the Rio Deseado River mouth, the tide eventually turned again to my favor, but the wind breezed up more, from 20 kn to now probably 25 kn, all following nicely, but at some point “nicely” becomes stressful, as the sea got steeper as well. But at least the progress was all right now! And it forced me to continuously paddle with a look over my left shoulder to see what would be coming on to me, and that took my view off the trashy coast…think positive! And I saw three or four dolphins – my guardian angels…so all would be well!

There was as well the area on my chart shown as “weeds fields”, starting 25 km before the river mouth, and though I was hoping the “weeds” would calm the seas down, it didn’t really make any difference… only once the reef area started, it got marginally better. But then I had to paddle out again a bit, too, to find a reasonable calm line of water. I was so far already dressed with PFD and hooked to my kayak…the nerves…but the reef eventually calmed the seas down to a reasonable level.

10 km before the first head land, I saw a car on top of the beach, obviously looking for me, though they first passed me and came back after some minutes…my white boat in a sea littered with white caps is hard to spot! And at that point I was paddling about 800 m offshore as well, to avoid the worst of the reef area.

But soon I saw them stop frequently, and wave to me a couple of times. Not sure if it was my contact Marcos himself, or some friends telling him when to start out with some other paddlers to meet me as he was planning to do. When I had to turn into the river mouth around a rough rocky headland, where the sea for sure got quite bumpy again, I lost the car, but soon spotted some others, obviously tracking me. But none of them were waving me to land yet, so I kept on paddling, looking for the promised kayaks to meet me. If I’d be them, I’d not paddle far out in this wind…not even in the calm waters of the shores of the river mouth. They were littered with those kelp weeds now all over, making real paddling hard.

I rounded Punta Cavendish, which had HUGE impressive rocks fallen off the cliff line some thousand years ago, which was quite a view!

And then, after some more small bays and rocks, I saw eight kayaks coming up to meet me! It was Marcos Oliva Day with his wife Malala and two more paddlers in reasonable touring boats, plus four younger kids in polo boats, dressed only with shirts and t-shirts in this wind, but at least with a pfd. I was freezing just looking at them, me being eventually quite wet and cold, despite the dry suit. Freezing feet, wet bum…I need to check it for holestomorrow.

We were passing all together two more headlands, where Marcos obviously had alerted a bunch of locals and press and TV to welcome me and to cheer me on! It was quite the biggest spectacle so far me arriving in a city…

But after 67 km of mentally and physically tough paddling and me freezing my ass off I had a hard time smiling and waving at the crowd…sorry…in this state I’d rather wave at a HOT shower 😉 !

Eventually we were landing, and the same crowd welcomed me, and I still felt the same about my hot shower…soon, please! And not so many people in it, please…

My kayak got stored in the kayak club shed, and Malala was driving me to the Prefectura building with my gear, where I was welcomed nicely and shown to a luxurious guest room – the best accommodation I had in Argentina! Thanks a lot for organizing this!

I was happily stripping under the working hot shower, and said sorry to all invitations for dinner or social meetings this night, as I simply needed to do my chores and to get some rest. This included after the shower doing some laundry, drying it pressed in a towel as much as possible, and hanging the laundry and my dry suit out. Drying and charging electronics, cooking dinner, and the short evening was over…no more energy for a real update that night! But tomorrow would be a rest day as well, with me in a better state for socializing, southern winds again, growing to a storm in the afternoon!

2 comments on “Tue 08/11-2011 Day 71

I am astounded by the amount of energy and perseverance you can come up with, this is just unbelievable. I am happy to read your eyes are open for all the wildlife too, but remember that you cannot do all this without those friendly local faces as well. All the best of good luck for the coming miles, Aard.

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