Pos: here
Loc: Caleta Quedal
Acc: tent
Dist: 0 km

Karel fore casted for today halfway reasonable winds and direction with 15-20 knots south west, but the swell was to be 4-6,50 meters! That is a combination which is no good – my “swell limit” is about 4 meters with such wind. I’m not in sheltered Fjordland any more!

So I knew already more or less yesterday on my tough effort I’d be having a rest day today, and could dig in hard and stay up late – what I did.

I still woke as usual at 7 am and checked the fore cast update, and he upgraded it even to 25 knots and 7 meters. Though the swell is not directly related to the local wind, but generated way far away from here, this was an obvious no go. For tomorrow, the swell is the same, with even strong headwinds. Another rest day. Friday, the seas are going down during the day from 6 to 4 meters and low to moderate wind, maybe it works, maybe not yet and I have to wait another day. But Saturday again!

Well those beach rest days, especially when I can have a walk around (unlike in Fjordland…), are actually “real” rest days. City stays are no rest. Especially the last one in Puerto Mott was pure stress. So maybe it’s high time to have a “real” rest!

My beach here is remote and like a paradise, with a bunch of cows and very nice horses sharing it with me. I had a walk around already, with a bamboo walking stick (you may also call it “cow chasing away” stick…), and I was lucky not to raise any attention of the cows, or better to say possible bulls…

I was climbing a path for a while, expecting any time to run into a house and a watch dog, but I was not climbing high enough, I later learned. There was the guy guarding the animals living higher up.

I had a visitor in late after noon, my second and only other neighbor. Cecilio was a friendly (though having a big machete and iron hook in his hand…) old local light house keeper (no Navy…) from Faro Cubo Quedal. His job is to watch the boat traffic, but he hasn’t seen me coming in yesterday before night in rain and bad visibility. We could barely talk, but it somehow worked, and he invited me to visit him on his lighthouse tomorrow! This would be an hour walk! But when he left, he climbed on one of the many free running horses to have a ride uphill, and I was sensing he simply let it go again when he was up there! Maybe I have to do the same tomorrow?? But I should have learned more Spanish, or at least kept my dictionary…

I was sitting on the beach for a while at low tide around 5 pm, and watched the now about 7 meters swell rolling in – completely different situation from yesterday and this morning’s high tide with lower swell around 3 meters Low tide in the very early morning was even very easy going. On high tide, there is a heavy dumper crashing on the steep beach, even that strong this morning I had to move my tent a bit further away. But you could paddle into the river mouth, and no rocks were displayed.

Now on low tide with 7 m swell, the swell is breaking now heavily a bit further out the flat, and rolling in smoothly, exposing a lot of rocks in the river mouth area, where you can’t paddle in any more. I’d have to land and launch on the completely other side of the beach now! See how it is when I really have to go…so far for the “sheltered” beach landing facing north on such big swell…I assume any “sheltered” landing would be bad on 7 m swell – facing wherever.

Another ugly thing in the very early morning were millions of tiny flies outside and even inside my tent, they were no biting sand flies though, just a bit annoying. Fortunately they were gone over the day, replaced by the usual nasty big flies. But those ones you can at least chase and kill…