Tue 25/09-2012 Day 279

P9250389.JPG
The black beach with the small salt pan behind Punta Grande

Pos: here
Loc: behind Punta Grande
Acc: tent
Dist: 38,9 km
Start: 7:55 End: 16:40

Tomorrow:
Estimated landing: Caleta Colorada
Estimatedstarting time: Right after sunrise
Estimated landing time: Well before sunset

The night was cold! The logs on the veranda had 2 cm gaps, through where probably some draft came through. It is warmer on the heated sand of a beach! But it was as horizontal and even as it could be. All good.

The day’s paddle started with a bit of headwind, and then it was dead calm all day. Very low swell. Nothing really exciting happened on a crossing of the wide bay right up to Punta Grande. Besides we got entertained by hundreds of seals and seabirds feeding themselves with the obviously plenty of fish. the birds enjoyed to steel the fish almost right of the seal’s mouth…

We did a wide berth around Punta Grande, after which we had picked three landing options. The first beach where we are at now, had on Google Earth quite a strange look with it’s deep black sand and some lighter stretch behind it, and I was not sure what it would be like, if the dark stuff would be just rocks before a lighter sandy beach?

But it was really deep dark black sand, and quite sheltered behind a small breaking reef. No problem to land there in a tiny surf. Two white crosses were not really inviting on this dark area, but those crosses belonged only the some kind of shrines, no graves…

The light stuff behind the dark sandy beach was desert dust, which occasionally fills up with sea water and leaves a small salt pan crust on top. We could have collected our first sea salt here! It was now fully dry, but when it fills up on high swell and tide, it must be soaking deep to walk on!

We rather camped on some gravel road besides the black sand, as the highest ridge didn’t look 100% safe to stay dry. It probably will, as it is low seas and mid-tide, but camping on gravel is cleaner anyway.

The main advantage of being two people on a trip for me is when it comes to dragging the boat up high and dry – the hull is getting much less stressed on *not* dragging the boat up yourself on sharp gravel, but carrying it with two people…