Small challenges

In Canada, a typical boating adventure involves driving the car to the supermarket, visiting the fuel dock with the boat and heading away.  This is roughly the same for a Chilean boater with their boat in Puerto Montt if they are planning a short trip around the nearby islands and inlets - with the exception that their entire itinerary has to be approved in advance by the Navy.

Our trip is longer so things are different.

Isla Chiloe Scenery

As we passed north along the shore of Isla Chiloe, it started to become obvious that, while our food and fuel would just last to Valdivia, the chocolate, peanuts, cookies and wine would be exhausted.  Oh no!

So we fit in a stop at the city of Castro on our way north.  This regional center boasts a good supermarket. Also the fuel needed for a margin of comfort after covering the additional distance to Castro was easily purchased at a truck-stop.  Fighting the relentless winds and currents in the channels on the way north had increased our fuel consumption more than we could have imagined.

Getting these easily purchased items aboard our anchored boat was somewhat more problematic.  The tidal range here is six meters from low water to high water and only the Navy have floating docks that move up and down with the tide.  With our purchases, we wheeled the dinghy down onto the beach from where we had left it safely above the sea in a parking lot.  Did I mention our dinghy has retractable wheels?  After loading our five twenty-liter jugs of fuel  and our groceries, we sat in the warm afternoon sun in the dinghy until the water returned and floated us up and off the beach. We even had an audience for this exercise and the locals would no sooner notice what you were about and they would come running to help.

Since we had stopped at a town with a Navy base, we had to present ourselves and our documents (twice) to obtain approval for the remainder of our voyage to Valdivia - which had already been approved in Puerto Natales.  We are not troubled by this. It is connected with a concern for our location so we can easily be rescued.  A minor addendum to these procedures is that the ports are frequently closed to small vessels (like ours) in the sort of inclement weather that doesn't really trouble us.  The boat has, after all, gotten itself here from Canada.  We rushed to get the dinghy aboard  and the anchor up in the gathering wind, somewhat worried that the port would suddenly close and we would have to start all over getting our permit to leave.

Against the background of solving these sort of problems, the large alternator on our engine has failed completely requiring us to run a separate generator for electricity even if the engine is running.
We can't really fault the thing.  It has been spinning 10000 hours or so and was just tired.  A worn brush slipped out of position and it's spring chewed up the copper slip ring and spat it out as a fine powder around the engine compartment.

Lacking time in our schedule to research repairs - the guy who sold the device eighteen years ago doesn't answer his phone - we have ordered a new one.  It is on its way but will stumble in Santiago on its way to final delivery until I find a broker to run interference between myself and customs.  Theoretically, parts for foreign vessels in transit are duty-free but I have my doubts that will happen.

And, like everything else here, this is all a challenge to my slowly-improving but not-yet-good Spanish, the language in which everything happens.

We are now back in civilization.  The mobile phones and wireless internet now work about 1/2 the time.  The land, all islands, is covered with little farms patched onto the rolling hillsides.  It is a sort of "Shire" from "Lord of the Rings"

Shellfish culture floats

The water, less scenically, is covered with enough fish farms and oyster culture areas that sometimes we can hardly believe there is a route into the anchorages where we spend the nights.  Of course, in the morning we discover the last sentence to have been an exaggeration as we easily see the obvious way back out to sea.

But all goes well.  The scenery is still very special and five more days, including an overnight open sea passage, will see us in Valdivia making our final preparations for the return to Canada.

A Christmas Portfolio in Red & Green!

Christmas Tealia - British Columbia

Gorgonian coral - Chile

Centolla - Chile

Rose Star - BC

Urchins and Algae - Chile

Essential gear for cruising in Patagonia

If you plan to come to Southern Chile south of the Golfo de Penas in your sailboat, here are a few things that we use that really help:
The ‘Italian’ book: ‘Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego Nautical Guide’ (by Mariolina Rolfo and Giorgio Ardrizzi). They’ve listed over 400 usually safe anchorages.

You need 4 shore-ties. These are described in various books and in an earlier blog by Larry.

If you have a fairly small vessel, you’d be wise to read ‘Winter in Fireland: A Patagonian Sailing Adventure’ by BC resident Nicholas Coghlan. He and his wife Jenny sailed their Vancouver 27 – ‘Bosun Bird’ from South Africa over to Brazil via St. Helena and down the coast of Argentina. They spent time in Ushuaia and Puerto Williams and came up through Patagonia in the winter. His research into the history of the area and his description of the hold-ups they faced will give you an in-depth view of a sailor’s life and how to deal with Patagonia in a small vessel. Even if you’re not a sailor, you’ll admire the story of their life working in Argentina and later in the Canadian diplomatic service.

‘Marine Benthic Fauna of Chilean Patagonia’ edited by Vreni Haussermann and Gunter Forsterra details the geology, maritime and oceanic conditions here in addition to its primary focus on underwater creatures. In some preliminary information it states: “From 42 degrees south, the dominance of bad weather is increasing each year. In some places, like those exposed directly to the action of the air masses, the highest concentration of winter depressions results in more than 25 days of rain per month.” The book later states that 6,000 mm of precipitation falls annually. Increasingly bad weather has also been noted by Greg and Keri-Lyn of ‘Saoirse’ who have been running charters to Antarctica for many years.

We find that negotiating these channels with a bigger boat makes it easier. Although we still face lots of challenges, we can carry more fuel and have a more comfortable time in the cold. Since this is our only home, we made sure that we would have good insulation and a working furnace instead of having a faraway roof or driveway to maintain for disconsolate renters.

Before we left Canada, I knew we’d be making this trip along the Canales. So I bought some essentials. Several unsolicited gifts have also been the source of great warmth.
1. Heat Factory hand heaters … get them at MEC in BC or REI in Washington.
2. Scandinavian model dive mitts. These are great for pulling wet lines out of the 9C water when you are tying to trees. A gift from  Norwegian friend Rune (SV Opportune)
3. Down-filled mitts available at Eddy Bauer – Amanda Neal of ‘Mahina Tiare III’ told me about these. Get 2 pairs – you can wash them.
4. The special ‘Fashy’ German-made hot-water bottle. It’s double-insulated and it comes with a cozy fleece cover. This was a gift from Kania and Gregorio – the physiotherapists who run Centro Praxis in Valdivia. It’s a lifesaver!
5. Get thin merino wool long johns, toques and neckwarmers – they are warm, good under rain gear in rain and they’ll dry quickly. You’ll find yourself using lots of layers. Remember that once socks get wet with sea water, they rarely dry!
You will need the usual heavy-weather sailing gear. Make sure to use the neoprene ‘oilies’  bottoms for putting out and pulling in lines. But on top we use our gore-tex jackets. They keep out most of the rain, while allowing us more ease of movement.
We also use really warm (and much cheaper) neoprene fishermen’s boots. They’re warmer and lighter than sailing boots and Larry likes them for navigating through the shallows prior to tying to trees ashore.

The Lowly Worm

cirratulus cirratus worm

When we saw this long orange multi-corded piece of plastic on the dive at Bahia Tom, I was quite disappointed in seeing such a thing, and Larry took 2 photos of it! I listed it under 'plastic 00 and 01' on my Excel spreadsheet.
It has taken me several weeks of studying the Marine Benthic Fauna book (Haussermann & Forsterra) to discover that I was wrong about the Orange Plastic which we photographed on November 13. It's actually a WORM - a polychaete worm called 'cirratulus cirratus' - the angel hair worm. Reading more about it, I find it has multiple black eyes, with 8 rows ranged diagonally on each side. Our photographs are very high-quality, but I still cannot find any tiny black dots on this worm and I doubt  anyone else can find them in the photo. THIS is why you need a degree in biology and a microscope to be more than an amateur at marine identification.

We've now finished our seventeenth dive here in Chile - the dives have been very productive - Larry took 108 photos of our dive at 'Pozo Delfin'. I've edited all the photos and we've printed out our favoured species for our dive logs. I've generally identified them. The next step is to try to get a more specific identification using the Marine Benthic Fauna book' and they will then be massaged into a text file and organized in Excel after which comparisons can start as to what we've seen. We've done three dives at Pozo Delfin - one in 2007 and two in 2017.
There's a big learning curve to identifying the animals. Since many of the animals fit into the same niches as species we know from the Pacific NW, we know which class to fit them into on our Linnaeun species list. However, even with an I.D. book at hand, I'm not sure about many animals. Especially sponges and ascidians seem to resist easy classification. The Benthic Guide recognizes this, and the authors on each of the species provide the names of animals which could easily be mistaken for each other. As with many other subjects one can study, becoming familiar with the subjects takes a lot of concentrated study and experience.

Even within the world of scientists, changes are occurring with perplexing frequency. It's really hard for an amateur to keep up. I was astounded to learn that an animal we know as a nudibranch - the 'dendronotus rufus' - red dendronotid had appeared in a classic role in 'Pacific Coast Pelagic Invertebrates' which I simplistically imagined was all about jellyfish. It was very easy for me to mistake a hydrozoan (page 317) for the ascidian (p 895) in Benthic Fauna. Among the most confusing aspects of gelatinous pelagic life is the fact that some animals switch from being attached and living completely static (sessile) lives, to being pelagic (moving around like jellyfish) for parts of their life. Many stately corals spend part of their life cycle in a planktonic, free-moving form. Learning more has clarified for me that a little bit of knowledge is just that … a little bit.

It has taken laborious hours for me to try to classify the photos we have. Our marine identification teachers in Vancouver - Donna Gibbs and Andy Lamb were such experts. When they leave their dive, they merely check through a computerized list of hundreds of animals, and they check off each of those they remember seeing. Through looking at our photos, we often find many animals that we hadn't even noticed when we were diving.

For his skills as a scientist, an educator and a lifelong proponent for marine preservation Andy Lamb has recently been made a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society. He's a great expert. Where I'm pleased to be nearing 500 dives, he's now completed nearly 10 times that many - 5,000 mostly cold-water dives.


-----
At 2017-12-18 08:36 (utc) our position was 43°56.64'S 073°47.12'W

Dive Day Agenda

adelomelon ancilla snail (150 mm)

We got up early yesterday … I got up to write a few emails as time at the prime computer is limited. Its major uses are as a moving map for navigation and to track weather information. Since we don't have internet down here (no-one else does either - unless they're fabulously wealthy!) we usually only send and receive emails once a day. I was quite surprised when the Captain emerged at 5:30 - just as it got light. He looked around a bit and said "we'll have to move the boat closer to the divesite". So I got my coffee, prepared my hot water bottle, got on my 'oilies' (weather-proof oilskin pants), wool hat and mitts and I waited for my jobs to begin. To start the main engine these days, we have to run the generator for a while because the alternator is broken and can't be fixed until we get parts ordered to Valdivia (in January). Soon I heard the roar of the generator being answered by the roar of the main engine. Out I went to lift the anchor - the washdown pump had been turned on and the control to activate the anchor windlass (which pulls up the anchor chain) was also ready. But I'd forgotten that first we had to get the inflatable dinghy (stored on top of the deck) in the water.

So I did that job. I turned the crank and the halyard rope lifted the dinghy over the side and we dropped it in the water. Then I hauled in the anchor, spraying the chain and watched the captain get rid of all the kelp gathered on the chain and anchor. Next we cruised around looking for the perfect spot really near the rocks but not so close as to hit them. When he found the perfect spot, he estimated a distance perpendicular to where the boat should end up, and he had me start dropping the anchor about 300 feet from the shore - I called out the distances the anchor had run out and when he gauged we were close but not TOO close to the rocks, he told me to stop. He left the engine in reverse tugging against the anchor chain, I ran to the back and he got in the dinghy with one of the two long ropes we have coiled onto spindles attached to the back of the boat. He rowed the dinghy to the shore, clambered up through the slippery rocks, circled the rope around a sturdy tree trunk, carried a long rope end back to the dinghy and tied the end in a knot which would hang out over the water once I tightened the remaining rope at my end. I tightened it by pulling in the slack using another winch at the back of the boat. Meanwhile he came back to the boat, got the other long rope and attached that to a companion tree triangulated from the back of the boat. These two triangulated lines angled from the anchor would keep the boat in a secure position once they were both tightened.

We did all of that in short order. Now we had ropes ashore leading to a prime rocky location for us to do our dive.
I started to get my dive gear on. Unfortunately, when the Captain turned the key the main engine wouldn't turn off. My first thought was "why don't we just turn off the fuel?"; but diesel engines - once starved of fuel - are very reluctant to start again. Many thoughts raced through our minds as the engine labored on and on - we remembered that we couldn't even order parts until we got hi-speed internet. If we ran out of fuel here in the wilderness, it might take weeks before someone could get to us. What if we had to leave the boat there … etc etc. Anyway, after searching the engine manual for a period of time, the Captain discovered an alternative way to turn it off which he'll use until we get to Valdivia and he gets the spare parts needed NOW for both the alternator and the engine.

We proceeded to get our dive gear on - with him assisting me to get the tank on in the water. I was finally going to get some exercise myself after watching him do most of the work! We set off to the nearby rocks and had one of the best dives in Patagonia that we have ever had. After that, because of the storm forecast for today, we had to untie all the lines, haul the dinghy up on deck and pick up the anchor to move the boat - a 5-hour trip - to our new location here at Isla Amita.

Now all I have to do is edit and identify the animals in the 108 photos Larry took yesterday, to write our photo-logs and to start assembling the data about what we've seen in our three dives at the Pozo Delfin divesite (February 2007 September 26 2017 and yesterday). Tomorrow we'll dive again here at Isla Amita.


-----
At 2017-12-14 00:44 (utc) our position was 44°05.06'S 073°53.22'W

Summer finally!

Our cruising guide to this area says that once we are north of Golfo de Penas, summer is actually a possibility. It has been so! Five days out of the week since that passage have been blessed by sunshine, warmth and reasonable winds. We rarely even feel the need to run the furnace any more.

The desire to make a few memorable SCUBA dives is now able to occupy more of our attention as survival and safety demand a bit less.

Of course it is still not easy! We wanted to dive a site immediately next to a current-swept channel. The current generally promises more vibrant life as the sessile invertebrates have more food delivered to them.
Our cruising book promised a secure tie-up amongst the trees just next to the channel we wanted to dive.

The first problem was that the aforementioned current swept laterally across the opening to our little mooring cove with such gusto that there was no way to line up to back in to the spot. We waited about an hour for the tide to reverse at low water and tried again. The nook was so narrow that the plan was to anchor and reverse to a point just outside the opening, run several lines ashore and winch ourselves into the opening under perfect control. We needed the anchor to hold firmly to the bottom until we were all the way into the protected cove and had four lines securing us to trees. That would leave us immovable and out of wind and current.

After the first line was secured ashore and the rocks very close, it became clear the anchor was not holding to the rocky bottom. The hurried disconnect from our first tree went well and we escaped unscathed just before the tidal current returned sweeping in the opposite direction. On to plan "B". Of course, there is always a plan "B"!

We secured ourselves deeper in the bay with anchor and shore lines but, alas, too far from the desired current-swept channel to dive the site we wanted.

But, of course, we dove anyway along the rocky shore we could reach. We had been a bit tired of dive sites dominated by only one life form - typically the galatheid crab or squat lobster - and we entered the water hopeful of change. There WAS change but no real variety. In thirty minutes of swimming about in depths of six to twelve meters, the bright pink rocks were carpeted with fluffy white metridium anemones. They were far thicker than summer wild flowers on an alpine meadow but, alas, there was little room for anything else in this rather magic scene. The for-sure, though, is that the next dive will be different; that's why we go down and take a look.

The bonus of the day was not underwater but above. A large colony of sea lions graced a rocky islet just outside our bay. Every bay or channel offers something to see!

-----
At 2017-12-07 23:08 (utc) our position was 45°24.96'S 074°01.65'W

Alarmed!

SAILING: Yesterday and today we've sailed across the Golfo de Penas and we're now motoring along Bahia Anna Pink towards our anchorage. We'll reach it after a 32-hour trip. Larry chose the departure time really wisely as we've sailed most of the way and haven't needed to use up much of our precious fuel.

In another and quite different display of the Captain's brilliance, a VERY LOUD ALARM warned us that we had changed our course more than 10 degrees. Sailing headings are chosen on points of a compass between 0 degrees (North) clockwise around to 360 degrees (North again) so a change of 10 degrees wouldn't really endanger your boat in a large Bay such as Anna Pink (shown in photo). This short explanation of how headings, our compass and the alarm works is very simplistic and only explains one facet of a complex situation.

We really needed this alarm because of our 'finicky' auto-pilot. Otto (the pilot) has been acting up for quite a while. Failures have occurred at the worst times, such as when we were sailing past Leopold Island on the NW Passage, up north of Svalbard and while we were passing through a gap in the reefs in Australia on the Barrier Reef. The boat making a large turn, after steering straight for hours and hours, is exactly how an autopilot failure manifests itself.

Larry had tried several times to get the 'source code' for the auto pilot. Since it's nearly 20 years old, and the original company for all our instruments has changed hands, useful information was not forthcoming. If we wanted to buy a new Otto, we'd have to buy a complete and costly set of new instruments. They're all formulated to work together and the new auto-pilot would not work with the other older instruments.

With an unreliable autopilot, Larry simply added the alarm 'fix' to the compass which he designed and built. His compass has worked perfectly now (for us anyway) for over 25,000 nautical miles. This was just another one of his software additions to the already competent little device.

DIVING: I've been spending many hours of the trip trying to correlate the 3 dives we've done in the identical location at Caleta Ideal into useful statistics. There are 3 steps. One is to turn the MS Word list into something useful for Excel. The first step is to itemize all the animals according to our Donna/Charlie Gibbs/ Andy Lamb-inspired 'take' on Linnaeus into a list. So here's my way of listing items.
1 Flora … kelp and algae
2 Porifera (sponges)
3.1 Hydroids
3.2 Anemones
3.3 Sea-whips, Pens
3.4 Corals
3.5 Hydrocorals
4 Jellies Ctenophores
5 Worms
6 Molluscs
6.1 Polyplacaphora Chitons
6.2 Gastropods limpets snails
6.3 Brachiopoda Lampshells
7 Nudibranchs
7.1 Dorids
7.2 Aeolids
7.3 Tritonia
7.4 Dironids
7.5 Bubble shells
8 Bivalves
9 Arthropods - Barnacles
10 Shrimps, Isopods
11 Crabs
12 Bryozoan
13 Echinoderms Stars
14 Urchins
15 Sea Cucumbers
16 Ascidians, Tunicates
17 Salps
18 Fish
19 Mammals
20 Overviews
Of course, I keep track of which animals are not yet identified in the Chilean Guide (published 2009), and state the name in NA (North America) if applicable. I also state if the animal has not yet been identified anywhere. At least anywhere that I can find with my limited resources. That way divers in future can go in and find new animals or (at least) note range and habitat changes for known species!


-----
At 2017-12-02 18:11 (utc) our position was 45°48.33'S 074°35.83'W