Pos: here
Loc: Ushuaia
Acc: Atilio and Eva’s house
Dist: 18,9 km
Start: 5:30 End: 10:15

After the heavy rain last night, the wind breezed up from the west at about 1 am, creating quite a noisy chop on my beach. Well, I could have camped *before* and not *behind* Punta Segundo to be a bit more sheltered on my launch this morning…but but I wanted to cover as much distance that night as I could make until 8 pm, knowing the paddling tomorrow would be harder work with the increasing west wind.

Seeing the distance to Ushuaia this morning, it seemed like an easy run, but with first 15 knots, then 20 and at some corners 25 knots headwind, the whole “short paddle” became eventually a lot of work. But today I was fit for fighting the headwind on not too big seas, and I kept on pushing hard, past a long side of cliffs first with some back chop, then along the city coast of Ushuaia.

Amazingly, like in Rio Grande, the city coast line is not attractive to look at at all, and mostly poor looking houses and factories and are built close to the beach. In Europe and the US, beach front proprieties are the most expensive ones! Not here…

All the time, I was looking for a Prefectura car on the beach somewhere, like I had seen it many many times before landing somewhere in Argentine, but no, there was no car. Not even a Prefectura boat to be seen to guide me into the harbor! Did they forget about me already during my Chile intermezzo? 🙂 I was writing on my blog yesterday I’d be arriving around 10 am, and I actually arrived at the Ushuaia yacht club at 10.15 am – I think this is within the limit? Juliet later told me they expected me earliest at noon – hey, I’m German, and 15 min late is more than late enough with those headwinds 🙂 !

Anyway, I slowly approached Ushuaia, passing by the commercial bridge with a bunch of huge freighters and cruise boats, and paddled into the bay where the yachts were anchoring. I crossed behind the stern of a huge Chinese freighter, and the whole crew was just on deck for an early morning line up call. One guy by chance turned around and spotted me – then the next one, the next one…it was like a domino game, the lined up heads turning, and eventually getting out of line and order and all were staring down at me…and I was staring *up*!

I landed next to a jetty with a few mored yachts on a gravel beach, when  Juliet stepped out of the Prefectura car to greet me! And now, there was a boat on the water as well…just a bit too late to escort me in, guys! But anyway, I was happy to see Juliet again, my perfect English speaking Prefectura lady!

They guided me to the hot shower of the yacht club, while Juliet took my passport to get the entry stamp done. Thanks for the service!

I was driven to the Prefectura office, where I was greeted by the Prefectura boss Hector Vera. We had a long chat, translated by Juliet.

On the way out, Atilio Mosca was waiting for me to take me to his house and to look after me the next few days I’m staying in Ushuaia. Thanks to Atilio and his wife Eva with the three young kids to give me a home and help!

Atilio drove around that afternoon to shop for a few things like gas cans, new socks, epoxy repair and other little items. We also brought the tent to a guy repairing the torn flaps. I washed my kayak, and we hung it indoors to dry out for tomorrow’s proper repair job.

The best thing about Atilio’s house was that there was NO continuously running TV inside…I rather have three curious lively young kids around than this torture machine running all day in the background, even at meal times.

I’m too tired now to write more, as dinner was as usual in Argentina very late at 22.30 h..