We finally left Puerto Natales the 21st of May and sailed through the impossibly narrow Paso White flanked by granite and ice, towers of rock. We had a nice tailwind the second half of the day and we were doing 7-8kts for a few hours anyway. The next day was pivotal... good weather, as in, light winds forcast for the next 36 hours. So we motored and sailed from 8am to 5pm the following day, about 31 hours straight and we covered 140 miles putting us within a comfortable two days of Puerto Eden (a trip that we thought would take us 2-3weeks was going to take under a week. Plans only changed a bit:
* * *
Diary entry from May 25
While radioing the passing Navimag ferry on our way to Canal Wide (to find out about schedules for my return to puerto natales) we made the faux pas (sp?) of staying on channel 16 (which is the channel used only for hailing a boat, you are then supposed to go to another channel to talk). When we finished talking though we heard a familiar voice hailing the Persimmon... It was Bob again!!! we must have passed him on our night sail and he was some 20miles behind us. As a way of waiting up for Bob we decided to do the remaining 15 miles to the closest anchorage as opposed to our original plan which was to continue another 10 miles... we also decided to go to Glaciar Pío XI, Latin America´s biggest glacier, measuring more than 3.5km wide and 50 meter tall face. It flows like an icy tongue out of the Southern Patagonian Icefield. That night Bob didn´t show up until 2am so I only saw him this morning at breakfast - everyone was genuinly happy to see eachother... but in the end Bob decided not to come to Ventisquero Pío XI with us. If that were the case I would have been able to sail with Bob for a day or two but instead we arranged to meet in Puerto Eden in two days.
The sun lifted, shedding a curtain of yellow light all over the mountains and the wind blew lightly out of the north. Sailing would have taken us days so we motored straight into the wind. The first few hours were relatively uneventful if you don´t count the white white cony and humpy mountains, whose perfect reaching peaks found refuge in the pancake clouds. From 18miles (thats around 32km) we could already catch a glimpse of the glacier!! thats how big it is, the size, they say, of Santiago!!! At about five miles out, when it looked like surely we were at its doorstep as we threaded our way dodging crystaly ice in the water, giant aqua blue bergs and small dark pitted groulers, the efervescant sun spewing its own royal blue through the prisms of ice. This is when the dolphins came. There were at least 10 dolphins, some babies as well. For almost an hour as we motored to the gargantuan face through the graveyard of fallen ice walls, floating in an ever more serene channel, the dolphins swam with us, showing off; jumping 2, 3, 4 at a time, fully breaching out of the water to show their entire bodies, weaving, splashing cutting lines around the entire boat, swimming on their backs and on their sides to show white bellies.
All this with the backdrop of an ever growing (only for our own eyes) glacier. We hit a few growlers on our way in, shuddering the boat to a halt... soon after we arrived at the wall, the ever-low sun began to set over this continental filed of ice, this slowmotion river, a tummultuous mass of icetowers that flow down from the conical and sharktooth mountains for thousands of years. I climbed the mast and I could hear the thunderoush treacherous cracks of ice and could see small chunks, and at the end a shack or cottage size chunk, cleaving off and tumbling into the glassy water, throwing up waves, like mini tsunamis.
The left edge of the wall had a blue spot that I have never seen, this magnetic blue that drew my eyes into the layers of thousand of years of ice. A blue, a holy, unroyal story, untellable and absolutely uncomprehensible but fully alluring. I was sucked into a cavy crachy layered mess of blue, a glassy, steepled moving castle, no a mobile city of ice that has watched everything for millenia!!!
The funny currents, created by the meltwater (I presume) we could see move the glassy crystally shards of ice, blue and orange now with the parting sun, crimson on a mirror float and flow on a swell. Froim time to time a crack and a few chunks of ice would come of the wall and crash into the water beside the wall´s pitted foundation. Mario and I got off the boat to stand on a floating piece of ice. Alone, on a piece of floating frigid water...nothing around but currents and water and a golden sun in the swirling mirror of the city of ice... At night I made potato gnocchi and a simple tomoto sauce with grated romano...mmmm... and then a clear sky in winter, in patagonia... and a full moon...life does not get much better than this!!!.
...
When we got to Puerto Eden, Bob was already there and we hung out a lot, playing chess and baking brownies (for Bob´s birthday) and talking about life and pacifism (and its effectiveness, or ineffectiveness) about free will, vegetarianism, about Ulysses (which i was reading on the boat) and literary criticism... HEAVY SHIT! but lots of fun. There was a bit of drama at the end, shortly before I left but we all left on a good note. I thanked them all for everything and for challenging my opinions, which I realized had become a bit stale and I believed them just because I had always believed them.
* * *
Puerto Eden has few people, maybe 50 or so. 6 of them are pure blood Kaweshkar indians... probably 20 are police and armada and the rest are fisherman. We brought our laundry for a woman, Doña Patricia to do, and we just hung out, not really chatting much, just there, in her house drinking mate and here and there saying something of little consequence. She kept inviting us back to hang out. In our search for diesel, which we finally found, we went to the house of Manuel Maldonado, and after this I confirmed to myself that this was stepping back in time. This man´s house, among the squalor of rotting boardwalks and abandoned shacks, and little habited houses that have no telephones, could exist in Las Condes (the rich neighbourhood of Santiago) He has satelite internet and longdistance phone as well as satellite tv. He has all the trappings of a modern "home". After talking a lot with the police guys (a bunch of really cool, down to earth guys that were welcoming and interested) I found out that Don Manuel is the defacto owner of the town. He owns a fish farm in Puerto Montt and the means to transport everything that is fished in Puerto Eden to P.Montt to be sold. He buys everything that has been fished at 2000pesos the kilo and sells it in Puerto Montt at 7000pesos the kilo...
Like a step back in time.
* * *
Now I do not want to dwell on this but my last 24 hours after a surreal goodbye to my crew and captain, were tumultuous and costly to say the least. I was assured by my friends at the police station in Eden that I would not have to pay the "gringo" price on the ferry. (The Navimag charges foreigners the 300 dollars US from Puerto Eden, which is the price from Puerto Montt ie. they charge about 4 times what they should.)
I got on the ferry and the policeman talked to some guys he said would talk for me and I was brought to the room to pay. I explained that I had no credit card(a white lie) and only 40,000 pesos (about 80$, the truth). They after speaking with the captain they kindly made an exception for me. After writing an authorized reciept the captain asked for my passport. I asked him why but didn´t really think twice because chilean authorities are more than anal when it comes to foreigners´movements within the country. As night fell he returned my passport to me and I spent the rest of the time hanging out and playing chess with some young guys fromt he armada. When we arrived after 24 hours of navigation I was told to go to the bridge and was met by 3 intimidating International Police force officers. They wanted to know what I was doing in Chile, where I was going, they searched all my bags. Let me say I was angry and I let them know that they were being unreasonable in treating me like a criminal and that it was not fair. They phoned their headquarters to check up on my visa and seemed to be surprised to see that it was indeed registered. Then they asked me where I was going, I said Ushuaia, they said how, I said by bus, they said so you have money, I said in my bank (BIG FUCKING MISTAKE!) They said thank you and went to talk to the captain. They then escorted me to the office and told me that I had two options, pay the remainder of the 300$ or not and have my name in all the police stations so that I would be unable to leave the country. At this juncture I truly lost it, because I felt cheated and tried to explain that I would not have even gotten on the boat had I not been offered the discounted rate, I can not afford this. They lied to me and on top of it all they were patronizing me. In the end, after considering a few options that could have got me off but also could have ended in much more serious legal consequences I decided to swallow my pride, and my sense of justice, and my rationality and just pay the money. The man at the desk was very surprised when I came in very calm and appologized for my behaviour and gave him the cash.
I´m just glad thats over, but it was a bit of a nasty note to end on... next step... I don´t know... I´m waiting for snow in Ushuaia and meanwhile going to try to get back in shape after my sedentary month and a half on a boat!
Until next time...
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
The Navy
I am unsure whether these boys have a sense of irony, I certainly hope so. In the bible of cruising in Patagonia Giorggio says that Natales is a horrible place for any sort of personal yacht, motor or sail. There is no jetty, no peir, no marina for private yachts. However after a nice chat with the Armada guys (the navy) after they told us we could not be at their peir, they sort of just shut their mouths and let us stay there three nights.
Today is the 19th of May, two days and counting until el 21 de Mayo, the anniversary of a naval battle in which, like he explained to us as we stood in the white office, backs to the sea, Chile won against Peru and General Arturo Pratt (a national hero) died. This means that we have been surrounded by navy boats, the rumbling engines of grey and black boats, massive guns that move at 30kts through the water and can hardly be seen under the grey sky. All the boys on board are young, idealistic, brainwashed perhaps, very polite and nice. It seems they don´t fully understand what they are undertaking, what they participate in...
As the patrol boat that was docked next to us pulled away this afternoon, all the young boys wore lifejackets as they were politely given orders to cast off lines. As they steamed away into the mountains triumphant music blasted on their speakers, orchestral, battle music. I look over to Ian, we are on the deck and I look at his smiling face and say, I hope those boys have a sense of irony...
O no, this is serious stuff he says, they take this very seriously... He is right and on our port side there is a jetblack cruising gunboat also rehearsing presumable, and some bigshots are off the boat. The speakers blast tinny naval marches over the hoisted flags and the little white caps and all the boys march, they stop, they stand at attention, bayonnets in the air, they march, they stop, always looking forward, never to the side, looking down a tube to the boat, to the black and the flags, to the massive guns...
I think it was the bigshots, but as soon as that excersise started we were advised to leave the jetty. We checked in at the Armada office and were told by the innocent little boy that he would see if we could stay - we all agreed that something much more powerful must be watching over his shoulder... thankfully we have basically all our chores and errands done and are ready to leave early tomorrow morning.
I´ll be disembarking in Puerto Edén, a port on an island, a habited village connected to Chile only by the Navimag ferry from Puerto Montt to Puerto Natales - there is no road connection nor airport... lets hope I don´t miss the boat!
until next time
and not to forget, more photos on www.flickr.com/photos/44544772@NO3/
Today is the 19th of May, two days and counting until el 21 de Mayo, the anniversary of a naval battle in which, like he explained to us as we stood in the white office, backs to the sea, Chile won against Peru and General Arturo Pratt (a national hero) died. This means that we have been surrounded by navy boats, the rumbling engines of grey and black boats, massive guns that move at 30kts through the water and can hardly be seen under the grey sky. All the boys on board are young, idealistic, brainwashed perhaps, very polite and nice. It seems they don´t fully understand what they are undertaking, what they participate in...
As the patrol boat that was docked next to us pulled away this afternoon, all the young boys wore lifejackets as they were politely given orders to cast off lines. As they steamed away into the mountains triumphant music blasted on their speakers, orchestral, battle music. I look over to Ian, we are on the deck and I look at his smiling face and say, I hope those boys have a sense of irony...
O no, this is serious stuff he says, they take this very seriously... He is right and on our port side there is a jetblack cruising gunboat also rehearsing presumable, and some bigshots are off the boat. The speakers blast tinny naval marches over the hoisted flags and the little white caps and all the boys march, they stop, they stand at attention, bayonnets in the air, they march, they stop, always looking forward, never to the side, looking down a tube to the boat, to the black and the flags, to the massive guns...
I think it was the bigshots, but as soon as that excersise started we were advised to leave the jetty. We checked in at the Armada office and were told by the innocent little boy that he would see if we could stay - we all agreed that something much more powerful must be watching over his shoulder... thankfully we have basically all our chores and errands done and are ready to leave early tomorrow morning.
I´ll be disembarking in Puerto Edén, a port on an island, a habited village connected to Chile only by the Navimag ferry from Puerto Montt to Puerto Natales - there is no road connection nor airport... lets hope I don´t miss the boat!
until next time
and not to forget, more photos on www.flickr.com/photos/44544772@NO3/
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Some more diary excerpts
Just to get the feeling:
May 6
We set out with a little wind on our bow and a low cieling. We followed a pod of whales in the distance until a giant humback surfaced 1-2 boatlengths off our starboard beam. Snow had almost reached the sea and with this scarry background we sailed as best we could tacking up the Magellan (our 3rd day). The wind died completely and we had a current against us so we motored for a few hours (in this area of the world you have to take every opportunity to move forward because prevailing winds are very strong and dead against you...) Soon after though, we were able to continue sailing. No close calls this time (the day before we tacked about 1-2 boatlengths from a rock islet evading narrowly a huge disaster) but I went up on deck to un hook the genoa sheet fromt he forestay while tacking and at the moment I got up there it unhooked itself, slapping me in the face-head knocking my balaclava, which was perched on my head, into the Magellan... goodbye!
At around 3 or 4 o clock, the wind picked up such that the boat was heeling alot especially in the gusts which were over 25 knots and the chop got short and steep. Down under it was very difficult to walk with only one reef in the main sail and a full genoa. I got thrown in a gust - my hand grabbed the wooden rail of the bookshelf and my face in the same moment struck the back of my hand. If not for the hand I would have lost teeth for sure. In any case the taste of blood lingered in my mouth for a few minutes...
The wind having reached in excess of 25kts we had to reduce sail, so I went up to put a reef in the main and as I stepped out fromt he dodger (the sort of wind and water sheild int he cockpit) I got swamped and completely drenched by a wave that washed over the boat at that moment! I got up to the mast and started working, clutching something (the winch handle or the mast) at all times so as not to be launched into the salty sea! The wind, in its gusts, whistled int he rigging and waves crashed over the deck, washing spray into my face... We left Bob behind this day (Bob was a Australian singlehander who we spent a few nights with in an anchorage waiting for good weather - we would later meet him for another night).
May 7
...The prognostic was for 10 to 15 knots all night so we thought we could almost make the beginning of the Smyth Canal by the next evening, some 60miles in a straight line. As we got ready to go the weather was still very bad... williwaws (cold air that is pushed up over a mountain and plummets down in jets at extremely high speeds) were making our dinghy fly around like a kite, literally, outside so Mario and I went out to tie it back on the deck of the boat. A gust almost flung it, and us into the water but we held on. We managed to get it on deck but suddenly a williwaw ripped through the cove at probably 70-80kts. The Persimmon, swinging at anchor heeled over, with no sail up, at probably almost 30 degrees, making a mess of the food we were preparing below. Water sliced and lined having been thrown by the wind in black and white, deafening, screaming in my ears and in the rigging. Mario and I on opposite sides of the boat ducked, flattening ourselves down against the dinghy. The wind went up my nose, it blew so hard I could not think and I was almost lifted off my feet and off the dinghy on which I lay. When it passed we looked to leeward in the fading light to see a swirling tornado-like spectre white and dynamic, twist its way down the bay, spray given form...
We set out at 22:30. Ian and Katya were on watch from 11 to 2am so Mario and I tried to get some shuteye. My shoulder (which I injured the day before and am still recovering from - this was the first and worst day) was so bad that I could not sleep. I could not find any position that was not excruciating. After 2 hours I came out and sat there at the table, forced to explain to Ian and Katya what was up (i don´t like to complain and had just kept my mouth shut). I took an anti inflammatory (very uncharacteristic for me) which did nothing but when my watch came at 2am the wind started to pick up. I couldn´t do anything with my left arm and apart from the massive seizing pain that it gave me at rest, supporting any weight with it was even more excruciating. Instead they made me go to bed but I was unable to sleep because of my arm and with the rising wind, up to 30kts and over 2meter seas I was being thrown around like a ragdoll in my bunk. I came out again at 530am to violent pitching and a defeated feeling in the air. Current against us, wind at 30kts, gusting 40kts on our nose, an unenterable cove (in the dark) zero progress and three hours until daylight meant we had only one option: we had turned around and were headed, no sails, no motor, downwind and with the current doing 7kts. I was nauseous with pain (the worst I have felt in my memory) and the pitching was making me seasick. I was sent to bed again at 6am and at about 7am I somehow managed about 2 hours of sleep waking up at 9 to coffee and a boat our home, secure in the same cove we left ten hours before. Distance travelled: 28miles Net distance covered: 0 miles. Morale: shit. Pain: unbearable.
May 6
We set out with a little wind on our bow and a low cieling. We followed a pod of whales in the distance until a giant humback surfaced 1-2 boatlengths off our starboard beam. Snow had almost reached the sea and with this scarry background we sailed as best we could tacking up the Magellan (our 3rd day). The wind died completely and we had a current against us so we motored for a few hours (in this area of the world you have to take every opportunity to move forward because prevailing winds are very strong and dead against you...) Soon after though, we were able to continue sailing. No close calls this time (the day before we tacked about 1-2 boatlengths from a rock islet evading narrowly a huge disaster) but I went up on deck to un hook the genoa sheet fromt he forestay while tacking and at the moment I got up there it unhooked itself, slapping me in the face-head knocking my balaclava, which was perched on my head, into the Magellan... goodbye!
At around 3 or 4 o clock, the wind picked up such that the boat was heeling alot especially in the gusts which were over 25 knots and the chop got short and steep. Down under it was very difficult to walk with only one reef in the main sail and a full genoa. I got thrown in a gust - my hand grabbed the wooden rail of the bookshelf and my face in the same moment struck the back of my hand. If not for the hand I would have lost teeth for sure. In any case the taste of blood lingered in my mouth for a few minutes...
The wind having reached in excess of 25kts we had to reduce sail, so I went up to put a reef in the main and as I stepped out fromt he dodger (the sort of wind and water sheild int he cockpit) I got swamped and completely drenched by a wave that washed over the boat at that moment! I got up to the mast and started working, clutching something (the winch handle or the mast) at all times so as not to be launched into the salty sea! The wind, in its gusts, whistled int he rigging and waves crashed over the deck, washing spray into my face... We left Bob behind this day (Bob was a Australian singlehander who we spent a few nights with in an anchorage waiting for good weather - we would later meet him for another night).
May 7
...The prognostic was for 10 to 15 knots all night so we thought we could almost make the beginning of the Smyth Canal by the next evening, some 60miles in a straight line. As we got ready to go the weather was still very bad... williwaws (cold air that is pushed up over a mountain and plummets down in jets at extremely high speeds) were making our dinghy fly around like a kite, literally, outside so Mario and I went out to tie it back on the deck of the boat. A gust almost flung it, and us into the water but we held on. We managed to get it on deck but suddenly a williwaw ripped through the cove at probably 70-80kts. The Persimmon, swinging at anchor heeled over, with no sail up, at probably almost 30 degrees, making a mess of the food we were preparing below. Water sliced and lined having been thrown by the wind in black and white, deafening, screaming in my ears and in the rigging. Mario and I on opposite sides of the boat ducked, flattening ourselves down against the dinghy. The wind went up my nose, it blew so hard I could not think and I was almost lifted off my feet and off the dinghy on which I lay. When it passed we looked to leeward in the fading light to see a swirling tornado-like spectre white and dynamic, twist its way down the bay, spray given form...
We set out at 22:30. Ian and Katya were on watch from 11 to 2am so Mario and I tried to get some shuteye. My shoulder (which I injured the day before and am still recovering from - this was the first and worst day) was so bad that I could not sleep. I could not find any position that was not excruciating. After 2 hours I came out and sat there at the table, forced to explain to Ian and Katya what was up (i don´t like to complain and had just kept my mouth shut). I took an anti inflammatory (very uncharacteristic for me) which did nothing but when my watch came at 2am the wind started to pick up. I couldn´t do anything with my left arm and apart from the massive seizing pain that it gave me at rest, supporting any weight with it was even more excruciating. Instead they made me go to bed but I was unable to sleep because of my arm and with the rising wind, up to 30kts and over 2meter seas I was being thrown around like a ragdoll in my bunk. I came out again at 530am to violent pitching and a defeated feeling in the air. Current against us, wind at 30kts, gusting 40kts on our nose, an unenterable cove (in the dark) zero progress and three hours until daylight meant we had only one option: we had turned around and were headed, no sails, no motor, downwind and with the current doing 7kts. I was nauseous with pain (the worst I have felt in my memory) and the pitching was making me seasick. I was sent to bed again at 6am and at about 7am I somehow managed about 2 hours of sleep waking up at 9 to coffee and a boat our home, secure in the same cove we left ten hours before. Distance travelled: 28miles Net distance covered: 0 miles. Morale: shit. Pain: unbearable.
Monday, May 17, 2010
a few photos, more to come before I embark again
The Persimmon lies in the bottom left corner
Seno Pia glacier and some cool mossy things at Caleta Brecknock, before entering the Magellan Strait
Photos of Caleta Brecknock where we went for a nice walk on one ofthe days waiting for bad weather to blow over
Williwaw on the left (gust of about 60-70kts (over 100 km-h) and below a double rainbow, honestly a dime a dozen with the crazy changeable weather
Coming out of Seno Pia the Darwin Range of Tierra del Fuego
Yendegaia where Jose and Anamy live, only accessible by boat!
Snow in Puerto Williams on Georggio´s boat (the italian man who wrote the 1000plus page patagonian cruisers bible - we chilled with him - a professional musician we could hear him practicing scales and playing studies every day!)
Williwaw on the left (gust of about 60-70kts (over 100 km-h) and below a double rainbow, honestly a dime a dozen with the crazy changeable weather
Coming out of Seno Pia the Darwin Range of Tierra del Fuego
Yendegaia where Jose and Anamy live, only accessible by boat!
Snow in Puerto Williams on Georggio´s boat (the italian man who wrote the 1000plus page patagonian cruisers bible - we chilled with him - a professional musician we could hear him practicing scales and playing studies every day!)
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Futility
Is the name of the game, this game, the game of trying to put into words what can only be experienced in life. James Joyce said that "the fall" came not when Eve ate the forbidden fruit but when humans began to use language. When we began to use more than simple grunts of effort and groans of pleasure. That is when we limited ourselves. Lately I have been feeling very limited by language and my human ability to express.
We sailed away from Puerto Williams almost a month ago now with snow and gale force winds. Our motor died and we had to find an anchorage in the dark...
We have traversed canals, the massive Darwin range of Tierra del Fuego looming all around us, white and blue. Sneaking into a protected by we have struck ice, of the many chunks that had calved off of a glacier right in front of us that ran into the sea. Glaciers that flow and cling off mountains and pour off of the humpbacked hills and mountains, snowy peaks that feel dipped in frost, dusted. A land, this land that has scared spectres and ghosts for thousands of years so that the only thing that remains is the wind, the scraping bare, horrible, lifegiving wind that twists trees and gnarls branches. And water a bed of water, a bed of fresh sweet liquid that permanently pours off of the faces of green metre-thick moss and delicate flowers, sweating rocks and horrible faces.
Instead of writing all my diary entries which could prove to be very tedious for the both of us, I will instead post some of my poetry and maybe a few "extraordinary" experiences (as if not all else is also extraordinary!)
Mostly what is fresh:
May 11
... Today we left Puerto Tamar, the western end of the Magellan strait, rounded the cape of Tamar into the huge mouth, open to the massive poorly named Pacific. What we experience was a dreamy sun, and dreamy rocks, hard as the sea and the wind, the angelic sun cutting luminescent coins from the glowing black clouds. All these words are just words. they cannot ever paint the gold on the water like shards of stainedglass or broken ice on the mountains of rolling water, folding into themselves and into the sweating rocks that hump the horizon and trace their green veins and capillieries from a celestial blue and black to the forever grey ocean...
We sailed all day at 5kts and when the wind began to die, fade fast into the endless brine and be sucked up in the calm swell... at this moment we were doing 2kts...but within 5 minutes the water was black with wind shadowing the exploding sun. White conches broke the dark water with heaven , with white. A forest of surrenders, white flags. We bore off and reached in 30kts of wind, with one reef in the mainsail and a reduced genoa until the mouth of the Smyth Canal where we found a land of enchanted orange flowers growing on meters of soft moss and a thousand homeless rocks. we squeezed into bays where we broke the obscure mirror sending our wake to the edge, fast, feet away by the draped stones, draped in green and turquoise grey full of twisted branches beaten for thousands of years by the real winds these jets that buffet everywhere always forever.
Ah, and all under a yellow hue, in a world squeezed from a tired lemon and left to glow, black and yellow quiet and full of trolls and one eyed unicors and the wet dark smell of moss. All that was left for us was everything in the world, the sunset painted on the first clear sky in weeks and cypress silloittes creeping out of the whispery quiet walls around our anchorage.
...
The next day we reached with only our staysail in 30-40kts gusting over 50 at 5-7kts and only went twelve miles when the wind shifted against us we pulled in and anchored.
...
The next day...views have been spectacular. the sun made vegetation very green, vibrant instead of the customary dull green. And the afternoon lifght was almost pink. We saw another whale that lumbered on majestically down the channel. Tere is something honouring and awe inspiring about being in the presence of such a beast! As usual, light and its absence makes the difference. Weather, clouds and precipitation mix with light and dark and the result is a cosmos of contrast and sweeping colours. Going through Paso Victoria we looked back at Seno Union, a spectacular mix of mountian silouetted land falling into the misty yellow light pouring out of a hole in the clouds... And then dolphins. We saw them in the distance on our port side so we rushed up to the bow and I stood on the prow right on the anchor hanging my body over the rail. But the dolphins, 3 of them, waited up, they could hear if not feel our escitement. They swam, crossing and twisting, sinchronizing and braiding their lightning paths in the bowwave. We yelled and called in excitement. they got ahead and doubled back to play in the bow wave again. They did this for probably ten minutes...
The following poem was inspired by my diary entry from may 11... thats why there are so many similarities...
The Beginning
You win this one
My bare teeth are
Pointing to the sky
And into the rascally rollers
Lines that are circles
Pry my awe, they pry my jaw.
You terrible bed of undulating shards!
You cracking beasts of lore!
No, no.
I win this run,
The cutout cloud prints sliced by the sun
Mountain jaws, the bareback humpback rotten hills
A bird, a kelp gull
Basks in the endless zephyrs til a downdraft
Flaps its wings.
Careen, float, in and out
With your brazen beak
Your weightless curves, searching
With beady eyes the fish famished waves
For a feed -
Goodbye gull! Goodbye you lonely floater!
I will never see you again -
Into the trough
And over a salty crest that saws the sky.
Horizon? Horizon?
I must have coughed or choked
On my own surprise.
Waves to slow my blood, accelerate the heart,
Explode into the sky by the tower...
A tower! A tower!
A howling sillouette, a plaster
Sculpture that becons the birds
And the brimming well of brandishing swords,
A beacon to boats,
A harlot of the standing silent swell
The answer comes to me:
This unicorn and this lemon sky;
These pink bells and 442
Different colours that whisper to me
From sponges, from river corners.
Twinkling dewy mosses
Drip with imagination and slimy lichen,
Protective rusts in the rotten childhood hideaways,
Laberynths of humanless fairytales,
Sopping twisted trees and green,
Green, green, green!
To me, into my wiley world
Of moss and stone
It is not a game!
This is not a game!
Untitled
I
I want to be where
Nobody sees me
Where I fly beneath senses
And everyone is muted
By grandeur.
Domes loom, domes punch the sky;
Rocks fragment the clouds and
Only rusty greens
Crawl up the granites, rusty capillieries
On the glowing, shining stones -
Shine on you wet rocks, where
Veins of minute crystals vapourize
Like a misty spectre
A spectre? A ghost? A phantom? No!
No spirits fly these winds,
Only mist and brine
Because the wind has haunted these rocks
And they never wanted, never loved,
Just blown away and lonely in the echoes.
II
Don´t be afraid grey lines,
I will remain here forever to see you ,
Even if every whisper says im dead
And the rain and the sparrows and gulls ignore me
I shall stay to watch all your shades
From which your tears pour onto the frost
Like morning petals.
Don´t worry grey lines,
You will never be forgotten,
Even if its only my humid bones
Where you engraved your name
Every second for months
And the blubbery backs of whales.
I feel your pulse
From this shell that bobs
Up and up and screams through
Cables and cuts through like knives and butter
Past the penguins and the seals.
Puerto Williams
There are little pebbles, echoes of a stone
That wait eternities or seconds for the sun to loosen
Rivers in the mountains,
For a trip to the sea, a one way ticket
To a channel that leads nowhere;
The grey street water
Feeds children´s breath for as long as
We can remember - as long as houses and
Planes last at the end of the earth
And the crumbling white mountains and the dogs.
A clown show and a circus of wild men
A clanging of metal and dacron in the wind,
A rumbling of engines, a gurgling of water
And a short everlasting snow in the sunchilled -
A goodbye under a bright black sky that
Sears the sea with white flecks and whips it
In our way
We sailed away from Puerto Williams almost a month ago now with snow and gale force winds. Our motor died and we had to find an anchorage in the dark...
We have traversed canals, the massive Darwin range of Tierra del Fuego looming all around us, white and blue. Sneaking into a protected by we have struck ice, of the many chunks that had calved off of a glacier right in front of us that ran into the sea. Glaciers that flow and cling off mountains and pour off of the humpbacked hills and mountains, snowy peaks that feel dipped in frost, dusted. A land, this land that has scared spectres and ghosts for thousands of years so that the only thing that remains is the wind, the scraping bare, horrible, lifegiving wind that twists trees and gnarls branches. And water a bed of water, a bed of fresh sweet liquid that permanently pours off of the faces of green metre-thick moss and delicate flowers, sweating rocks and horrible faces.
Instead of writing all my diary entries which could prove to be very tedious for the both of us, I will instead post some of my poetry and maybe a few "extraordinary" experiences (as if not all else is also extraordinary!)
Mostly what is fresh:
May 11
... Today we left Puerto Tamar, the western end of the Magellan strait, rounded the cape of Tamar into the huge mouth, open to the massive poorly named Pacific. What we experience was a dreamy sun, and dreamy rocks, hard as the sea and the wind, the angelic sun cutting luminescent coins from the glowing black clouds. All these words are just words. they cannot ever paint the gold on the water like shards of stainedglass or broken ice on the mountains of rolling water, folding into themselves and into the sweating rocks that hump the horizon and trace their green veins and capillieries from a celestial blue and black to the forever grey ocean...
We sailed all day at 5kts and when the wind began to die, fade fast into the endless brine and be sucked up in the calm swell... at this moment we were doing 2kts...but within 5 minutes the water was black with wind shadowing the exploding sun. White conches broke the dark water with heaven , with white. A forest of surrenders, white flags. We bore off and reached in 30kts of wind, with one reef in the mainsail and a reduced genoa until the mouth of the Smyth Canal where we found a land of enchanted orange flowers growing on meters of soft moss and a thousand homeless rocks. we squeezed into bays where we broke the obscure mirror sending our wake to the edge, fast, feet away by the draped stones, draped in green and turquoise grey full of twisted branches beaten for thousands of years by the real winds these jets that buffet everywhere always forever.
Ah, and all under a yellow hue, in a world squeezed from a tired lemon and left to glow, black and yellow quiet and full of trolls and one eyed unicors and the wet dark smell of moss. All that was left for us was everything in the world, the sunset painted on the first clear sky in weeks and cypress silloittes creeping out of the whispery quiet walls around our anchorage.
...
The next day we reached with only our staysail in 30-40kts gusting over 50 at 5-7kts and only went twelve miles when the wind shifted against us we pulled in and anchored.
...
The next day...views have been spectacular. the sun made vegetation very green, vibrant instead of the customary dull green. And the afternoon lifght was almost pink. We saw another whale that lumbered on majestically down the channel. Tere is something honouring and awe inspiring about being in the presence of such a beast! As usual, light and its absence makes the difference. Weather, clouds and precipitation mix with light and dark and the result is a cosmos of contrast and sweeping colours. Going through Paso Victoria we looked back at Seno Union, a spectacular mix of mountian silouetted land falling into the misty yellow light pouring out of a hole in the clouds... And then dolphins. We saw them in the distance on our port side so we rushed up to the bow and I stood on the prow right on the anchor hanging my body over the rail. But the dolphins, 3 of them, waited up, they could hear if not feel our escitement. They swam, crossing and twisting, sinchronizing and braiding their lightning paths in the bowwave. We yelled and called in excitement. they got ahead and doubled back to play in the bow wave again. They did this for probably ten minutes...
The following poem was inspired by my diary entry from may 11... thats why there are so many similarities...
The Beginning
You win this one
My bare teeth are
Pointing to the sky
And into the rascally rollers
Lines that are circles
Pry my awe, they pry my jaw.
You terrible bed of undulating shards!
You cracking beasts of lore!
No, no.
I win this run,
The cutout cloud prints sliced by the sun
Mountain jaws, the bareback humpback rotten hills
A bird, a kelp gull
Basks in the endless zephyrs til a downdraft
Flaps its wings.
Careen, float, in and out
With your brazen beak
Your weightless curves, searching
With beady eyes the fish famished waves
For a feed -
Goodbye gull! Goodbye you lonely floater!
I will never see you again -
Into the trough
And over a salty crest that saws the sky.
Horizon? Horizon?
I must have coughed or choked
On my own surprise.
Waves to slow my blood, accelerate the heart,
Explode into the sky by the tower...
A tower! A tower!
A howling sillouette, a plaster
Sculpture that becons the birds
And the brimming well of brandishing swords,
A beacon to boats,
A harlot of the standing silent swell
The answer comes to me:
This unicorn and this lemon sky;
These pink bells and 442
Different colours that whisper to me
From sponges, from river corners.
Twinkling dewy mosses
Drip with imagination and slimy lichen,
Protective rusts in the rotten childhood hideaways,
Laberynths of humanless fairytales,
Sopping twisted trees and green,
Green, green, green!
To me, into my wiley world
Of moss and stone
It is not a game!
This is not a game!
Untitled
I
I want to be where
Nobody sees me
Where I fly beneath senses
And everyone is muted
By grandeur.
Domes loom, domes punch the sky;
Rocks fragment the clouds and
Only rusty greens
Crawl up the granites, rusty capillieries
On the glowing, shining stones -
Shine on you wet rocks, where
Veins of minute crystals vapourize
Like a misty spectre
A spectre? A ghost? A phantom? No!
No spirits fly these winds,
Only mist and brine
Because the wind has haunted these rocks
And they never wanted, never loved,
Just blown away and lonely in the echoes.
II
Don´t be afraid grey lines,
I will remain here forever to see you ,
Even if every whisper says im dead
And the rain and the sparrows and gulls ignore me
I shall stay to watch all your shades
From which your tears pour onto the frost
Like morning petals.
Don´t worry grey lines,
You will never be forgotten,
Even if its only my humid bones
Where you engraved your name
Every second for months
And the blubbery backs of whales.
I feel your pulse
From this shell that bobs
Up and up and screams through
Cables and cuts through like knives and butter
Past the penguins and the seals.
Puerto Williams
There are little pebbles, echoes of a stone
That wait eternities or seconds for the sun to loosen
Rivers in the mountains,
For a trip to the sea, a one way ticket
To a channel that leads nowhere;
The grey street water
Feeds children´s breath for as long as
We can remember - as long as houses and
Planes last at the end of the earth
And the crumbling white mountains and the dogs.
A clown show and a circus of wild men
A clanging of metal and dacron in the wind,
A rumbling of engines, a gurgling of water
And a short everlasting snow in the sunchilled -
A goodbye under a bright black sky that
Sears the sea with white flecks and whips it
In our way
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Puerto Williams
I am now in Puerto Williams, Isla Navarino. We are leaving today and from now on no internet contact, just glaciers fjords and storms. I hope all is well and when I can I will post more photos on Flickr - by the way this is the link, without having to sign in you can just look at the photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44544772@N03/
News to come in 2-4 weeks! now to the high seas!!!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44544772@N03/
News to come in 2-4 weeks! now to the high seas!!!
Monday, April 19, 2010
Backcountry to the sea.
I just climbed a mountain in the snowy cold Ushuaian backcountry. We hiked in, bushwacked through a valley and above the tree line and skirted our way around the scree of a mountain, camping high up near a lake. The next day we awoke in the dark and after a hat breakfast we began the ascent. Up up up the snowy scree and rubble to where we thought we could access the peak - but a cliff got in our way, close to the summit so we had to give it up and climb the mountain next door. Bizzarre clear skies, white mountains all around, a ton of adrenaline as some of this should have been climbing but with such loose rock its impossible to put protection in... so we had to be very careful. Last night we came back, tired, wet and muddy, showered and had a big potluck at the clubhouse with all the french and italian sailors. Today we are finally leaving for the sea, the ocean voyage, with a quick stop in Puerto Williams (Chilean customs). More news to come, bon voyage a tous!!
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