Rainbows, Dolphins, and Ice

(Sunday, March 22)

We waited for weather for a few days at Caleta Borracho and left at first light this morning to try and make it up to Seno Pia, a famous glacial area. Our friend Osvaldo on Polar Wind (a local charter-sail) happened to be taking clients up to Seno Pia today as well, so we followed him up. By "follow", I mean that we left Borracho at the same time and both ended up at Seno Pia this evening; Polar Wind is much larger and faster than little Polo Flat. In any event, Osvaldo has been sailing around here for mnay years and invited us to tie off of them in a very cool anchorage by the glacier and near to a big waterfall. It is gorgeous.

Today was a long day with less than perfect wind/weather, but we had to make head-way in order to catch good weather through some upcoming tricky spots. In spite of the constant cold sprays of salt water, and annoying head wind, we had an empty channel, surrounded by mountains, rainbows, glaciers, waterfalls, and even dolphins and sea lions on our bow as we dodged icebergs coming into anchor.

Tomorrow, Monday, we will go check out a major glacier nearby and then head on. For now, though, some much needed sleep after a rough day.

Position: 54,46S 69,40W

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(Monday, March 23)

Woke up early, said goodbye to Polar Wind, and went up to the glacier. The weather was clear and calm, though quite a few more bergs floating about. We had our morning coffee in front of the ice, listening to it crash and bang. Being that close to a glacier was pretty surreal. My brain just could not process it - sensory overload! Icy blue colors, massive size, fragile tracks carved through it...truly unlike anything I have ever seen before.
After our glacial meditation :), we continued back out into the channel. With no wind and no waves (quite a different day than yesterday!), we got to Caleta Emilita in good time. It's a beautiful anchorage – very protected with views of the snowy mountains in the distance. Off again early tomorrow morning.

Position: 54,53S 70,23W

Puerto Borracho

Good day on the water, 40 nm covered! In a pretty little bay and enjoying a glass of vino tinto and chicken curry. Off to make ground towards some glaciers tomorrow. We'll update every few days from here out.

Position: 54,56S 68,40W

Later, Mates

So, we will leave tomorrow morning! All paid up, fresh veg and meat loaded into the bilge cooler, and Armada approved. Our good friend Denis (the local/Swiss man who watched the boat last year) also gave us some homemade rhubarb jam, green onion, and fresh parsley. Yay!

Not much else to say - some final photos of an abandoned military site we found hiking, Francisco (the manager of the Micalvi) and I, and some wild calafate berries (google it) I picked today that I will make jam out of tomorrow at anchor. We are off now to enjoy a dinner out (for once!) and a few “goodbye” pisco sours at the Micalvi bar.  :)

We will update from here sans photos (too large for the sat phone), but rest assured photos will abound as soon as we get somewhere with internet. We won't actually see the blog for a while, as we will be updating via email, but please feel free to comment anyway. And don't hesitate to contact us on the boat email: poloflat@spsmail.net. We'd love to hear from you all!  Just keep in mind that we can't download any attachments, forwards, photos, videos, website links, signature lines, etc. so keep emails to the boat plain and simple text.

Lots of love!

bunker

amo

Francisco!!

calafate

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!

Back to P.W.

Hola amigos!  It was so nice to get away from the busy marina over the weekend, and very peaceful.  The weather beyond the beagle was not in our favor for going to cape horn, so we stayed safe and snug in some cool anchorages.  We sailed thursday afternoon from here to Puerto Toro (4 hours), arriving late evening.  The waters were super calm on the way, like black glass, so I was able to get dinner going en route.  We arrived, dropped anchor, and had a delicious homemade veggie curry!  At Puerto Toro, we did some walking and met the 2 people who are currently living there, both Armada.  Victor was particularly friendly (I think he was happy to have people to chat with!) and he even let us use the showers in one of the offices.  It was awesome, as the Polo Flat shower is rather make-shift and, while manageable and hot, it isnt the most comfortable.  We pulled anchor Saturday and headed over to Isla Picton.  Isla Picton is a tiny place, but its strategic position in the canal has made it a battleground for Argentina and Chile in the past.  It belongs to Chile since a war in '74 (I think?).  Due to its war-filled past, it is unfortunately covered in land mines so we weren't able to do any trekking!  There is an Armada station on island, a very nice house actually, where a family of three currently resides.  The armada officer, his wife (Marcella) and their 8 yr old son (Marcello).  We had coffee with them Saturday afternoon and managed a few hours of conversation in spite of their lack of English and our lack of Spanish.  They are a really lovely family, but they are feeling a bit isolated there at Picton (they are stationed there for one year).  On Monday morning, we had a good window of weather to get to Caleta Marguerita, a small and very protected anchorage on the way back toward Puerto Williams.  What a gorgeous spot.  quiet, untouched, and very calm.  We we able to get ashore easily and did some discovering for a few days.  We got back to Williams Wednesday night.  It was a great test for the boat and everything is in great shape for our longer trip.  Matt fixed the wind generator and the solar panel, and the desalinator (water maker) is working well.

We'll be here for at least the next 10 days or so (unless there is great weather to move) and I will update before we head out more permanently.  For now,  we are provisioning, provisioning (lots of beans and rice!) and we are filling up on lots of extra fuel.   I'm looking forward to the glaciers and the mountains!

hasta luego.

Penguins on the way to Puerto Toro

Puerto Toro

Puerto Toro

It's cold!

Secret bunkers in Puerto Toro

Jetty at Puerto Toro

Looking off into the Beagle

A guy and a lighthouse

Isla Picton

Some pretty boat in Cta Marguerita

Cta Marguerita

Wolski's in Williams

well, a few days of work and one night of drinking at the Micalvi bar and we're off to Puerto Toro and maybe a round about Cape Horn if the weather's good. Not much new, definitely getting colder every day, and I did find a Wolski's sticker outside the bathroom in the Micalvi. small world - Milwaukee is never far from where I am :)

Looking forward to an adventure outside of the marina over the next few days.  more to come...

no caption necessary!

Our German mate Thomas and Matthew looking pretty cool.

Hola from Tierra del Fuego

After close to 40 hours sitting on flights, we made it last Monday to Ushuaia. Hopped on “Commitment”, Matthew's buddy Jordan's boat. We spent a few days on Commitment with Jordan  and his crew (Matt and Kareese) catching up on sleep, adjusting to the cold, and grabbing a few supplies in Ushuaia. Pretty cool city, but definitely run-over by the cruise ships taking people to and from Antarctica. Every other store front is a hostel or a tourist-trap.

We motor-sailed over to Puerto Williams Chile on Friday – 4 hours, easy. The Commitment crew had customers, so promptly went out on a trip through the channels. We got to work on Polo Flat. Surprisingly, there was very little mold and even a clean head! So far, Puerto Williams is a gorgeous place, much nicer than Ushuaia likely due to the lack of tourism and no cruise ships. The marina here is quite small with an old ship that has been turned into the clubhouse. All of the boats raft off of the main “ship”. It's rad looking. Many characters around – lots of French, an American family of 5 who broke their mast rounding the horn a few months back, a notorious Norwegian (google “Berserk”), us and our tiny green boat, among others. Polo Flat is certainly one of the smallest between here and Ushuaia. I can see even more now the incredible feat it was for only two people to take such a small boat down south.

For now, we continue to clean, stock, and fix. And of course dabble in delicious (and cheap!) regional reds and the local beer called Austral. We'll head back to Ushuaia end of this week to fully stock up at the bigger supermarket and load up on fuel.  

Jordan and Matt

Matt and Kareese

View of Ushuaia as we left, aboard Commitment

Puerto Williams (Polo Flat is just in front)

Micalvi Boat Harbor, Puerto Williams