Caleton Silva
On Tuesday we had a long day making about 30 miles of progress but actually covering more than 40 as I took Paula on a sightseeing trip into Seno Pia which is a spectacular set of Fjords. After that it was a pretty routine motor sail through Paso Timbales and past our last Chilean Navy reporting station, Alcarmar Timbales (Alcamar is short for ‘Alcadia del Mar’),
until we get into the Magellan. Routine sailing in these parts means encountering every weather condition from flat calm and sunny to rain with 40 knot plus woollies (williwaws).
Near the Timbales (they are islands) we were passed by the Brazilian Navy’s Antarctic supply ship “Maximilian Mouse House”, or some such name, as they headed back south We last saw them heading north to Punta Arenas as we left Puerto Williams. “Saoirse” (Greg & Kerry) overtook us at this point too pouring some diesel through the pipes to get north for a Geology project up around Tortel so perhaps we’ll see them again when we get into that area.
We moored in a little creek, Caleta Emilita, on Isla O’Brien. We were just turning in when a noise outside caught our attention and on having a gander outside spied a 70′ (ish) Navy patrol boat mooring to the rock wall just in front of us; so we had protection from any unfriendly natives for the night, no need for tin tacks on the deck as in Joshua Slocomb’s day 🙂
We left at 6am to take advantage of some nice weather before some threatened squally stuff came and had a nice sunny morning motor of about 15 miles with just some strong breeze in the last 20 minutes or so. We arrived at our destination, Caleton Silva in Puerto Engano, and had tied up by about 10:30am. On arrival there we spotted three yachts already at anchor, two were just leaving and the third was our old friend Patrick aboard “Celaphais”. Patrick was leaving too but after sniffing the chop that we were punching through turned back and decided to anchor for the day too. At one stage on this day we had the wind behind us!
As I write this on Thursday evening we are expecting Patrick over to join us for dinner any moment as neither of us fancied punching west in the breeze that we had here today. Tomorrow doesn’t look much better on the GRIB but we’ll see, just tuned into the Amarda forecast for tomorrow and they say 30 knots and 4m seas in Canal Brecknock where we are headed so looks like we are not going anywhere tomorrow. The weekend promises better wind directions for us. We had a nice little hike here today. The walking is much easier this far west as you, and the view, are not impeded at every step by those infernal tree things that abound further east.
The Centolla (king crab) fishermen must have had a stormy few days here with time on their hands as the have erected an effigy of one of their number in scarecrow fashion. He standing in the shore clothed in yellow oilskins with a fishing rod in one hand and holding up his catch in the other – his catch from a distance looks like a fish but on closer inspection turns out to be a bra; one wonders what crab fishermen were doing with a bra aboard …………..
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