Pos: here
Loc: Pimentel
Acc: tent
Dist: 00 km
Start: 00:00 End: 00:00

Tomorrow:
Estimated landing: Isla Lobos de Tierra Bahia Juanchuquita
Estimated starting time: Right after sunrise
Estimated landing time: Well after sunset

Eventually the daylight was breaking through a foggy morning, and we could see again a bit ahead! A bunch of offshore anchoring boats showed fishermen life, and they were mostly busy unloading the catch of the night and cleaning their nets.
We were close to ask about a possible disembarkation for a kayak, when we were spotting some of the “small horses” reed kayaks before the surf zone! If they are out, we can go in also, we thought…

We were approaching the first guy, quite a young man, dressed with a normal t-shirt and pants, barefoot, and as a windbreaker a cut open big garbage bag over the body. In broken Spanish I was asking for the best spot for a kayak to disembark. He was answering with a few options I could not all understand, but the best one seemed to be a floating platform by the jetty!

The swell looked horrible from our offshore position, and on the shore all was white from breakers. A local on such a fragile craft must know how to be safe here! The young man kept on lifting two more nets for a few minutes, and then guided us to the platform on the long landing jetty. It was fortunately a modern plastic one, good to our fragile boat shells. It was floating quite violently up and down in the swell, held only by two ropes to the jetty.

I had a bit of doubt, but this seemed to be our only option here other than going through heaviest wide rolling surf! The guys said something like “vienos amigo ayuda”, and I decided to land besides the floating thing, climbed on, and dragged my today moderately heavy boat over the edge of the platform all the way up. The swell was also helping a bit, but the hull sounded as usually horrible crackling on dragging a heavy boat over an edge… 🙁

But I was up and safe with my boat – so far. I had to knee or to hold onto a pole to stay upright, and assisted Peter to get on. Communication with the “amigo” on top of the height jetty was moderate, but he threw us a rope. Did he expect to drag the whole kayak up like a free pendulum? I saw them later doing this with the “reed horses”…

But we started unloading as usual, and made signs the kayak is still too heavy to just pull up with a rope. Best would be to leave the boats on the floating platform over night!

Our “exit” was via a smaller jetty which may be possible to be lowered a bit, but not in this swell. So we had to climb up on the metal framework on a high swell lifting us, and then we had to balance with the heavy gear bags on metal framework only up to an eventually concrete staircase.

The whole long jetty was a renovation work in progress, and the board walk was holey and partially lose. Certailnly no handrail anywhere.  A dangerous “workplace”!

We opted to camp just on the jetty, impossible anywhere else other than in South America! We looked for a spot where the logs were moderately in place, still any smaller item dropped would disappear through the wide gaps into the raging sea under our feet. What a disembarkation after 24 hours of paddling, and what a camp site!

The “small horses” fishermen guys told us there would be soon workers coming, but we didn’t expect to have to get a good rest on such a construction site with a very noisy big generator running all day! But oh well…we could be trashed in the surf!

We had our earplugs in all day, and tried to get some sleep or at least rest. In the afternoon it was my turn to go water shopping, and I also had a look at the main beach where I just saw amazingly a group of about 20 “small horses” riders going in unscathed through the surf! Is their craft more suitable for those conditions than ours, do they know their seas better, or are they more skillful? By no way I’d be going in here…

But watching the waves for longer, I saw those are really loooooong rollers, not breaking violently, but slowly, if at all eventually. I kind of never have seen such waves, maybe in Australia somewhere. Really best onshore surf conditions! And there were a bunch of them playing all day.

I bought a 15 cm “small horse” model for my shelf at home as a souvenir in admiration of their local skills.

Talking to the jetty workers and to a group of young fishermen with a “teacher”, they all showed also huge respect for my trip. They know the sea!