Pos: here
Loc: Prefectura Puerto Rawson
Acc: Ariel’s beach house in Playa Union
Dist: 43 km

Start: 07:15 End: 15:30

Time to leave the friendly beach an to head into civilisation again!

I had to overcome the shore dumper in a surf ski manner this way – just that a surf ski is under 10 kg and my loaded boat is 70-80 kg now…means I dragged my kayak quickly out on a lull and straddled it as fast as possible to paddle it sitting on top out of the danger zone. Next time I’ll even put my cockpit cover on to avoid even the smallest wave filling my cockpit! Still had to jump in the water again to drag my rudder fin out…too many small pebbles on launching.

But besides that, all went well in this way of launching.

The distance for today was not far – about 40 km only. I assumed my landing into the protected harbor of the river mouth would be easy, but then I remembered that river bars can be quite a wave trap, like for example I remember the very dangerous Grey River  bar in Greymouth/ New Zealand South…

It was quite low tide as well when I arrived, and already way before the entrance I experienced that much swell that I better followed my usual safety procedure – PFD on and even hooking myself to the boat…

But no real breaker came to trash me…actually, when they started to break, it was just toppling a bit on the wave crest. Still, you never knwow what may come!

The entrance itself was narrow with the zone of (almost) no breakers…but they all were quite low. Still…I was happy to be inside eventually.

I landed first on a shallow beach displayed on that low tide, and “talked” to two old fisher men there where the Prefectura was – well, for sure, just go upriver!

I almost didn’t see that there was water in the river left to paddle on upstream – it was just about deep enough and got even better after the river bar.

But no way for the big fishing boats to go out on low tide! There may be only a small tide window left for them. All fishing boats have one color only – orange rust protection paint. Well – it’s practical! But even the seals living in the harbor river mouth had the same color 🙂 – must dye them well being that close in… 🙂

I slowly floated along the shore with all the mored big fishing boats – functional ones and almost wrecks – and kept an eye for my host Ariel! I texted him earlier to arrive around 4pm, and it was 3pm only…so I may be too early.

But eventually a frien of Ariel spotted me in the shallow muddy water almost down at the Prefectura jetty, and told me he was there to greet me and to pick me up. All in Spanish…

But soon some more or less English speaking Prefctura guys came down as well and helped me to unload my kayak. Quite a job on low tide in the river mouth mud! Good I had my boots on…but still we had to rinse kayak and my dry suit as well as my helper’s suits and shoes later on from the quite stinky mud!

My kayak got parked then in a Prefectura garage, and after a lot of pics I drove off with Ariel’s friend to find the beach house and eventually Ariel himself.

My laundry got taken away for washing in a real washing machine – thanks! And I enjoyed eventually my hot shower. I even managed to go shopping in a neighborhood super market, which was big enough to have the basics. If I’d known 2 km up the road there was a resonable sized one…

I knew I had to wait for my parcel tomorrow and won’t paddle anyway with bad winds, so I had no real hurry to go to bed.