Pos: here
Loc: Cabo Carranza
Acc: tent
Dist: 35,1 km
Start: 8:35 End: 16:10

I was just about ready packing my kayak, when I saw the white car of my new set of morning watchdogs coming down the hill. They have learned from the guys yesterday not to come from the other side like I was advising, but rather to take the boots off before entering the river to cross…apart from one guy. He left his long socks on for some reason – was he wearing a long pantyhose under his uniform pants? 🙂

These four young officers this morning were very keen to help me launching with their rolled up pants, and looked just like they’d be ready and happy to throw themselves into the water just in case I’m getting smashed in the surf launch…but besides helping to push my kayak down the steep beach (uphill is much harder…) and holding politely my boat that I could enter it conveniently in the shallows, there was nothing to do. I got afloat with no problem, told the guys to let go, and was waiting patiently about ten or even fifteen sets of waves until I could clear the surf belt in a good lull. No spectacular crashing through the heavy steep breaking waves or a capsize, roll or even bailout to perform this morning, sorry…

The paddle was quite unexciting, I was crossing directly to Cabo Carranza (with good memories of my Argentine friend Alejandro D. Carranza…). It was calm seas, low wind and quiet and peaceful out there. Thanks goodness for easy weather. Even the surf looked coming closer, at least from the distance, doable.

I had to give the cape a wide berth with a lot of rocks jutting out wide. Still, there was a small open fishing boat sitting in the middle of the rocks, diving for mussels. Well, they probably know exactly where it is breaking and where not…I rather didn’t want to know and paddled wide around.

Most rocks were heavily occupied by a lot of seals, and accordingly the water was full of them as well. I’m not turning around any more since quite a while when a heavy snuffing is to be heard behind me…at least they are not sharks and not aggressive at all.

I was planning to land in the second bay after the cape, which looked calmish on Google Earth, but coming nearer, it had as much surf as it can offer with the swell being around two meters. I was hoping for a bit of shelter behind the rocks, where I saw a small settlement, but besides the usual lull in the surf, the breakers looked as scary as they could be. But I was not willing to paddle further, as I assumed it won’t be much different anywhere else once you take a closer look. I was planning to land in Constitucion tomorrow, which would be another easy 37 km.

I decided to land not in front of the village, which would still be between rocks, but at the end of the bay after the last low set of rocks. Maybe this is the place where the biggest breakers are, but it had no side wash, which is especially on launching quite ugly. So I made very carefully and slowly my way in, noticing that occasionally on a bigger swell, a second line of breakers was developing besides the heavy shore dumper. This needed to be avoided, with even a bit of back paddling once I noticed I was too close. But finally I saw no swell piling up behind me after a bigger set, and I sprinted in and landed all right, safe and dry.

Once I’m out of my kayak and having pulled it quickly up high and dry, I always look amazed back into the surf soon piling up again…and always have a shaky feeling in my legs from the adrenalin rush. Still a bit proud to have landed safely…

No Navy car visible so far…I was landing too early and in a different place than they advised me…but soon after I was almost done with making camp, there they were. Did they really decide to visit me every night and every morning? They drove up with their car to my beach place, and I was wondering about the driver’s 4-wheel drive capability as it looked like they just got stuck after the turn when they wanted to stop any way…

Three new officers from Constitucion jumped out of the car, I counted ten different guys from this town so far…and for sure, one of them had a note pad with questions!

I wanted to jump ahead, and told him exactly the answers before he even started out reading the questions, but I probably was speaking too fast in  English…and he started all over again. The same questions as yesterday, the same answers as yesterday…the same efficiency as yesterday. When I thought I answered everything (while I always efficiently continue making my camp!), the guy with the note pad started calling his boss, and in a long conversation he passed on all my answers. But then the boss liked to have me on the phone myself (he was speaking good English), and started to ask me again the same questions…and if I’d need anything for tomorrow – thank you, no!

“But if we can bring you anything”…well, was this the Navy mail order phone? Yes, you could bring me some fresh fruit, I started to joke, but please no apples, bananas or oranges…a pineapple, strawberries, blueberries or grapes would be nice! Not sure if he took me serious…but I won’t mind getting some new vitamins without having to visit a shop! 🙂

If all goes to plan, I will have eight easy distance paddling days left, arriving Wednesday 2nd of May in Valparaiso. Five of them will have a doubtful surf landing and launching. Especially the landing on the long beach after Constitucion scares me a bit. But fortunately the swell is forecast all next days maximum around two meters (hope it stays like that!), so it can’t be too bad…but you ALWAYS underestimate the surf on landing from outside!