Vamanos

Well, our time in Puerto Williams is ending soon. We hope to be on our way by mid-next week. I hope that my next post is some brief thing with only coordinates! In spite of our delay, we've had a really good time here and over the last week or two. We've made tons of new friends: Margie and Chris off of “Storm Bay”, a lovely couple from Hobart Tasmania who have been sailing for nearly 20 years (!) all over the world; Magnus, Rupert and Amelia, three crazy English folks who are the current crew of Pelagic Australis (google it - a famous boat that is maybe about 80ft long and was built to winter over in Antarctica); Jacques and Fritz of “Moana”, a german boat with a french helmsman and a Polynesian name (Fritz has even been to Rapa Iti in his years of sailing!); Francisco, the manager of the Micalvi; and of course our good ol' mate Jordan from “Commitment”. We've probably had too much fun with all these wonderful people, but we've managed to still get the boat really ready (there are so many drums of diesel, cans of veggies, and kilos of dried beans aboard!), do a few good hikes around, learn a bit of Spanish, and I've managed to do some work as well. In my “professional” opinion, we have done quite well :)

A few highlights: jumping in the 6 degree water to help test Jordan's immersion safety suits, a bit of walk-about down lonely roads and empty forests, spaghetti bolognese and pizza night aboard Commitment with the crew of Pelagic, Thomas, and Chris and Margie (not pictured – too much red wine!), and a day of super crazy wind (80 knt gusts - see video below) that was so wild, people here claimed they had never seen that much wind before (lucky we were safely tied in the protected harbor!).

Needless to say, we will miss it and all of the characters. But, as Tom Petty once said: time to move on, time to get going...

p.s. A few of you have said that you've had trouble posting comments. Comments previously had to come to me for approval first, so they did not instantly appear. I have changed this setting, so please comment to your heart's content! Unless your comment is making fun of my Tom Petty reference ;)

In the suits!

getting in the water, feeling like gumby!