Our last night in Puerto Natales was quite delightful. We had moved from our "secure" anchorage at Puerto Consuelo into town - or a mere half mile from town by dinghy - mindful of a good forecast for the night and the anticipation of a shared restaurant dinner with Martin and Patty of "Otra Vida", Mark and Rosie of "Merkava" and Greg of "Saoirse". Then we really wanted to get out of town as 1) the calendar was continuing its relentless progress and 2) the forecasts promised a lot of trouble with forced relocations and dragging anchors if we stayed.
Our departure the next morning was on a typically difficult Patagonian day with extra strong headwinds delaying us at a tidal pass and nearly preventing our getting through - a six hour delay; not a disaster. Our very safe planned destination for day one turned out to be too difficult to enter under the prevailing conditions so on we went for four more interminable hours to a spot we would have to leave if the wind shifted. It did! So we left!
A few days later, we find ourselves in Caleta Damien on Isla Whidbey. In conventional terms, we have made abysmal progress to date but the weather here only presents a decent day to the northbound small-boat sailor on one day in three.
This spot is a bit open to the southwest winds blowing at times at thirty knots but the waves are not traveling far and have no force to them. I know the anchor holding us off the beach is well dug into the gravelly sand fifteen meters down because I looked at it earlier today on an otherwise uninspiring dive. Four ropes to the most lively-looking trees I could easily reach from the shore add to our feeling of near-security. Our main concern is, of course, the strong gusty winds. The snow and five millimeter hail (on different occasions) earlier today are more in the way of entertainment.
We will get going again tomorrow or, more likely, the day after. The strongest squally winds have a way of flipping the dinghy and dumping the precious oars in the water while we are winching it aboard after using it to untie the shore lines. If you have seen small boat sailors towing a dinghy in your home waters, that is not good practice here as the fierce winds soon turn it into a kite and/or find some other way of depriving you of its further use. So we wait for weather at least good enough to safely get going.
All this aggravation, I must mention, is taking place while we are surrounded by unparalleled beauty.
Enough complaining ...
Mary Anne is playing Debussy on the piano, filling the boat with sound and beauty. I think I'd rather listen than write more.
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At 2017-11-18 17:52 (utc) our position was 51°18.47'S 074°08.75'W
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