​After the Superhighway’s bid for freedom on the high seas, we needed a down day in a major way.  Our friend Raul had told us about a lake that was several miles up a river that emptied into the sea not far from our anchorage in Bahia Tic Toc.  Clint and Reina were also keen on a little exploratory mission and the weather was slated to be sunny – a nice change from the torrential rain and high winds we’d been getting beaten up by for the past few days.  

​We had the poor fortune of arriving to the river’s mouth at low tide and after transiting the bar with breaking waves on either side, we found that progress up the river was pretty slow.  We inched our way up for an hour or two until we came upon a glorious looking black sand beach, clearly eroded from all of the volcanic rock in the mountains above us.  

​Our thirst and hunger were both strong and our wills were weak and when the sun started splitting through the clouds we had no choice but to stop.  Beers were cracked, fires were built, and the party commenced on the spot.  80s rock could be heard echoing through the jungle and across the glacially fed river as it swirled past our beach of choice.  

​Clint and Reina were planning to head down to San Rafael as well, so we started planning out where our next few anchorages would be and what we’d do once we got to the glacier.  We cracked into a few ciders and hung around the fire, watching steam rise off the beach as the sun worked its magic.

​It was exactly the warm, relaxing day we needed and we decided to slow-boat our way back down river with a couple of bottles of wine and some classic oldies ringing out across the water.

​After a quick afternoon nap, the girls went out kayaking and Clint and I hung around on the front deck of Karma, watching dolphins frolic around the boats and waiting for the sunset to come.  

​A tasty crab appetizer and a big dinner of chipotle cream mussels followed and we all went to bed early with full bellies.  

​We turned out early the next morning and were greeted by the perfect quartering breeze just after we left the anchorage.  The Rascal sails really fast on a broad reach, but Karma caught up with us after a couple hours of sailing and we were close enough that we could take a few pictures of each other as they passed.  

​The wind rose and fell a lot throughout the day and we did a lot of reefing and unreefing, but generally made good time and pulled into a delightful little anchorage by the name of Pozo de Oro that evening.  It was a little sheltered lagoon with a bottom of golden sand and stones.

​The next day of sailing wasn’t the fastest, with a fluky headwind and thick clouds, but we had several dolphin escorts, sailed past a few interesting fishing villages in the islands, and sailed close to a couple of sea lion colonies.  In fact, one little sea lion pup followed us for more than a half an hour, splishing & splashing and peeking up at us from the water.  

​On the final approach to our anchorage, the breeze that had been light all day shifted around a bit and we finally were able to scoot along at 5 kts under sail alone.  It had all the makings of a superb sunset and all the worries of the day melted away.  There were a few dark clouds to our south, but nothing that looked particularly troublesome, and we figured we would make it to our anchorage about an hour before dark.  

All of a sudden our light breeze from the side suddenly turned into torrential rains and violent gusty wind from dead ahead.  It climbed from 10 knots to 25-30kts in less than five minutes and the Rascal had her rail under water despite a double-reefed main and the little jiblet up front.  We cranked up the motor and tacked back and forth into it with the sea rising, the clouds darkening, and our on-time arrival looking dubious.  A particularly big wave swamped us at one point, stole our crab trap from on deck, deposited a couple hundred liters into the cockpit, and receded back into the ocean with a rude splash.  
​
The entrance into the anchorage looked exceptionally sketchy, with no soundings and a few sizable rocks, but we had little choice and we plowed ahead with Jess on the bow scanning for rocks in the gather darkness and me watching the depth sounder from the helm.  We made it through a little pass just as the wind began to die off and finally got the hook down about an hour after sunset.  It was a stressful evening, but luckily the Rascal pulled through nicely and we made a big mussel dinner (garlic butter wine sauce? Why not?) to recharge our batteries before bed.  

The next day had more south winds predicted, so we decided to take advantage of the sunshine to dry out the boat and do some exploring.  A beautiful sunrise greeted us in stark contrast to the previous night's foul weather.

​The anchorage was a cool little nook with lots of islets around and we went out in the dinghy to see what we could find.  

​Unfortunately lots of parts of Chile, despite their remoteness, have bit of floating garbage from salmon farmers and litterbugs piled up on shores and this otherwise pristine little nook was no exception.  We decided to collect some to build into a new crab trap for ourselves.  

​The views were still exceptional and we spent a good bit of time traipsing through the woods to find a little lake that showed up on the chart.  

​Not a bad spot for a nap, I reckon.  

​We spent the rest of our afternoon drying things out, editing photos on our laptops, and drinking gin and tonics.  All of a sudden, to our surprise, we saw Karma steaming into the anchorage!  After leaving them at Pozo de Oro, we hadn’t been expecting to see them until San Rafael.  It was great to catch up with them again and we spent the evening eating steaks, a rich mussel stew and dispatching the last of our gin supply.  

​We again split off from Karma again the next day and we made good distance, broad reaching and sailing straight down wind.  The big channels start to choke down into smaller tighter fjords at this point and the wind is pretty much always either coming from dead behind or dead ahead because of the funneling affect the cliff walls have.

The views were quite spectacular and we spent plenty of time slowly sailing along, dancing to funk music, playing cribbage, and drinking plenty of Chilean wine.   

​As we continued further south, we saw fewer fishing boats and the anchorages showed less signs of human activity.  We spent one afternoon constructing our new “recycled” crab trap out of the beach garbage while a light following breeze slowly pushed us further south.  

​We looked up part-way through the traps construction to find a big motor catamaran bearing down on us, the first big ship we’d seen in days.  They were clearly a sight-seeing mission headed down to San Rafael and they swept pretty close to us as we went by, breaking up the peace of the afternoon and rocking us with their wake. 

​The day wore on, and a little while before sunset, we saw them returning in the other direction.  In good spirits, and with a few glasses of wine in us, we decided mooning them would be a pretty damn good idea.  They were several hundred yards away, but someone must’ve had their binoculars out as they were passing because we could just make out the sound of a wolf whistle above the drone of their engines.  We waved in reply and we each continued on our way.  

We spent that evening finishing up the crab trap on the beach, eager to resume our nightly fresh-seafood appetizers.  

That night was nice and clear and we decided to head to the beach to take some long-exposures of the beautiful night sky.  There was no light pollution for hundreds of miles and the moon had yet to rise, so the Milky Way was crystal clear.

​Just before bed we christened our new crab trap “Carmen” with a bottle of pisco, baited it with some old steak grizzle, and dropped her over the side to try our luck.  We’d gotten a good weather report (strong north winds slowly tapering off) from Porter that afternoon and decided that we’d try our luck at entering Laguna San Rafael the following day.  There were south winds predicted for the following few days, so we knew if we didn’t make it, we’d be stuck just short waiting for a new weather window.  

​The San Rafael Glacier spills into a big circular body of water that looks like a lake, but is actually still affected by tides.  Its attached to Estero Elephantes (named for the sea elephants that used to frequent the area before they were all hunted to extinction) by a long narrow channel called Rio Tempanos, which is guarded by two very shallow narrow passes.  Because of the huge tidal swings and all of the melt water coming out of San Rafael, strong currents of up to 6 knots sweep through each of these passes daily and its very important to time your passages carefully.
 
We couldn’t transit the passes until about mid day according to our tide tables, so we had a fairly leisurely morning and eventually hauled up the crab trap to see what had happened by in the night.  It had twisted itself around the anchor chain, so it took a while, but when I finally got it up on deck, I couldn’t believe my eyes.  It was, by far, the biggest jaiba I’d ever seen and its claws were big enough to dismember me if I wasn’t careful!  We decided to name him Goliath.

​It was an auspicious start to a pretty goddamn righteous day and we pulled anchor and navigated back out into the channel.  The tide was still running against us so big waves piled up, and the wind was blowing at least 20 knots with the rain coming in droves.  Jess decided to spend the morning down below and whipped up some savory French toast that was just the thing to warm me up.  We were going a bit too fast for our anticipated bar-crossing, so we decided to drop sail and putter along under bare poles for an hour until the tide changed.  

​There were several shallow banks where the water and waves were piling up and by the time we got to the pass, we were getting lots of waves jumping into the cockpit and the wind was gusting up to 25.  We decided to switch down to the storm jib (a sail I very rarely use) because I didn’t want to be overpowered going into the maelstrom of the currents rushing through the pass.  We managed to sail through the pass at about 5 knots with the storm jib and a double reefed main pulling hard.

​Once we got to the other side of the pass it was like a switch had flipped.  The wind died off, the sun started to break apart, and all the swell that’d been coming down Estero Elephantes shrank down to a light wind chop.  

​We had another hour or two of sailing before transiting the other pass, so I decided to slip down below and mix up a big glorious lunch of American fried rice, complete with sausage, cheese, and even some bbq sauce.  We ate in the cockpit, bathed in sunshine with the clouds slowly peeling back to reveal some monstrous snow capped peaks behind them.  

​With the improving weather, we were less concerned about the second pass, but once we got into it we found a counter current of a couple of knots flowing out of the river.  This didn’t jive with the tide info we had, but we fired up the engine and powered through up into the river.  We were still making plenty of headway despite the failing wind and we had plenty of daylight left, so we just kept chugging along.  We’d covered a mile or two, when out on the horizon we noticed a floating white chunk.  I let out a whoop and we both went up on the bow to eyeball it.  It was our first iceberg!

​​We each took dozens of pictures and could hardly contain our excitement for this little white bergy bit.  Little did we know that we were about to see lots of bergs that were a bit bigger than this little Volkswagen-sized toddler.  

​The wind had risen again so we sailed on and slowly we saw more and more bergs as we approached the head of the river.  We had a decent following breeze and were able to sail up the entire thing after getting through the pass, which felt like a pretty good accomplishment given the counter current, the narrowness, and the fact that we were dodging icebergs left and right.  

Eventually we reached the river’s end and popped out into the laguna.  We were both dumbfounded.  There were several bergs around us that were the size of apartment buildings, just floating around placidly.  You could also see the full expanse of the glacier itself off in the distance. 

​Our friend Raul had told us of a good anchorage on the far side of the laguna and we pointed the Rascal towards it.  I was super eager to go and see an iceberg first-hand and I also wanted to get a few photos of the Rascal sailing amid bergs, so I set off in the Superhighway to do some recon while Jess kept the Rascal moving in the right direction.   The sunshine was flirting back and forth with the clouds that were piling up on the mountains and it created the perfect lighting for such a dramatic scene.  

​The intense deep blue color of the ice bergs was absolutely staggering and I moved in towards one in our path that looked like a crouching puma getting ready to lunge.  

​I also managed to collect some ice for cocktails and I got back to the Rascal just as the wind was picking up.  

​It turned into a perfect, clear north wind with no swell and we rocketed across the laguna to our anchorage at 6 knots with the wind whipping through our hair and ice bergs scattered as far as the eye could see.  

It was the perfect way to end such a challenging day of sailing and there was lots of congratulations and reflection once we dropped the anchor.  It felt like we’d “finally made it” – whatever that meant for each of us.  It was an emotional evening and we wasted no time in celebrating.  

​Bulleit poured over ice that was literally thousands of years old.  It tasted awfully sweet.

​The next order of business was dinner – Goliath was on the menu and we could barely fit him into the pan.  Each of his claws on their own would’ve been enough to feed us and he paired perfectly with the ice cold bourbon.  

​Not surprisingly, that put us right to bed and we woke up with a thirst for exploration.  The north wind continued throughout the night and kept all of the icebergs at bay, but it was fairly calm by the time we ventured out.  

​Just after the glacier came into sight, some dolphins appeared out of nowhere and started jumping and frolicking in front of the dinghy.  It was the perfect escort.  

​As we got closer to the glacier there were more and more icebergs.  Some were the size of a football, but others were the size of a 12-story building.  At times, our path would be totally blocked, but we were able to find leads through the ice that brought us up closer and closer to the face of the glacier without having to push much ice out of the way.

I’ve been impressed by how much abuse the Superhighway can take, but I never dreamt that it was capable of pushing big blocks of ice around.  

​We eventually got within a couple hundred yards of the glacier and decided to just stop and enjoy the scene.  The sheer size of it is absolutely incredible and we both sat in awe for a while.  

​All of a sudden, a loud thundering sound echoed across the quiet stillness of the icepack and we looked as a ginormous skyscraper of glacial ice calved off from the face of the glacier.  It slowly tipped away from the face and then, gathering speed, slid down into the sea with a smack and an enormous splash.  

​It’s tough to imagine the exceptional amount of water that gets displaced by such a huge object and the cloud of spray it created was several football fields long.  We were sort of expecting a big tsunami to come and cream us, but all of the surrounding ice damps the wave out and it just turns into a long, slow swell.  As the swell moves through all the dense pack ice, all the bergs bump elbows and make this incredible grinding, rumbling noise.

​We sat there for several hours, moving back and forth with the floating ice and watching as more and more large bergs broke off.  Each time it happened was just as exciting as the first time and we couldn’t help but let out oohs and ahhs each time a chunk would calve off.  It is one of the most incredible displays of the power and strength of nature that I’ve ever seen.  

​There were also lots of different types of calving.  Some bergs would tip off while others would slide in.  Sometimes a big chunk would break off all at once while others would slowly crumble piece by piece.  Some would hit the water like a cannonball while others slid in pretty quietly.  There were even icebergs that broke off from deep underwater and burst up from below!

​The bergs that came from down below (and from the corners where the glacier was getting pinched) were a glorious deep blue color.  Because there was so much pressure on these areas, all of the tiny air bubbles were squeezed out and they were perfectly clear unlike the whitish opaque pieces on top.  

​Eventually the wind started picking up and we decided that we ought to work our way back to the Rascal.  We picked our way along the shoreline and saw that some numbers were written on the rock in white paint.  Each number corresponded to the year when the glacier had been calving off in any given location.  Because of global warming, the face has slowly been receding and by the time we got out to the mark for 1978, we were more than a mile from the face of the glacier.  

​You could also see the areas around the glacier where trees and plants were starting to move into places that’d been under hundreds of feet of ice just a few decades ago.  This painted a very real, tangible picture of climate change and the tremendous rate at which our world is heating up.  

The wind and waves had risen substantially and we had a long, wet ride back to the Rascal that afternoon.  We decided to hunker down, cook a hot meal, and relax for the rest of the day. 
 
The following day, the weather was really horrendous and there was no way we were going anywhere.  We both caught up on our journals, played a lot of cribbage, and did some reading. 
 
When the clouds finally lifted the following day, we could see that the storm had created lots of snow in the high country.

​We knew about a trail that wound up through the woods, so we decided to venture off on a hike.  San Rafael is part of a national park and the trail has several spots that overlook the glacier.  On the way, we passed an old burned-out hotel that was built to stimulate tourism back in the 30s and 40s as well as a decrepit airstrip that is apparently still used at times.  

​It was a warm day, and we spent lots of time at the overlooks watching the glacier calve off and listening to the cracking and splashing of the icebergs.

​We were trying to scope out good zones to try our hand at skiing and we noticed a shoulder on either side of the glacier that seemed to have a good smooth surface without any big crevasses.  Most importantly, they’d be accessible by dinghy, because all of the approaches via land were blocked by cliffs and drop-offs.   

​With that important piece of recon completed, we started working our way back down towards the anchorage.  We both agreed that we should try and ski on the flanks of the glacier the next day and the weather forecast sounded promising.  We were just wondering aloud what Clint and Reina had been up to when we rounded a bend and there they were walking along in matching outfits.  It was a joyous reunion and we decided to cook up a big tex-mex pot luck dinner (complete with cocktails and a great sunset) on Karma.  

We woke up in a haze and I started gathering my things together for the ski mission.  I’d broken my skis weeks before in Argentina, but a friend had offered me one of her old pairs and I still needed to move the bindings over.  Mounting bindings isn’t a particularly easy thing even with a jig and all the tools you need, but doing it on a rocking sailboat with a raging hangover and makeshift tools was really taking things to the next level.  First I had to troubleshoot the inverter that seemed to be on the fritz.  After disassembling a few electrical panels, I traced the fault to a blown fuse and we were back in business. 
 
I made a quick, shotty paper jig and taped up an old, worn drill bit to avoid drilling too deep.  Against all odds, everything came together pretty well and by 9AM, I had a pair of early 90’s Salomon X-Mountains all mounted up and ready to shred.  We got on the radio with Karma and started planning our next moves.  The south wind we’d had during the night had started pushing a lot of the pack ice up towards our anchorage.  That said, all of the bigger bergs had run aground short of the shallow zone we were anchored in and the wind seemed to be dying off a bit.  We decided to make a run towards the glacier in the dinghies, but retreat if the wind kicked up or the weather turned threatening.  

​We loaded all the ski gear into the Superhighway and Jess rode with Clint and Reina in their high-powered dinghy.  

​It was a gorgeous morning, and we started exploring a bunch of the bigger bergs, getting up close and checking out all the nooks and crannies.  It almost feels like you have an enormous museum all to yourself, able to freely cruise around these glorious natural sculptures.  

​We even hopped off to walk around on one that seemed particularly stable without much risk of rolling.  

​But was we moved deeper into the pack ice, we found that it was much more dense than it had been the day before and we weren’t sure if we’d be able to even make it to the far shore like we did on the first day.  In retrospect, this change in the character of the ice was almost certainly due to the prevailing southerlies.  Right around this time, the wind started to kick up again and we decided that it was probably time to turn tail and get back to the anchorage to make sure our boats weren’t getting swamped with ice.  We were also a bit worried that the leads we’d used to enter the pack would close up on us and our exit would disappear. 
 
We mixed up a couple of pisco lemonades and began our retreat back to the anchorage.  The pack was slowly closing up around us, so it was a good call and we found the sailboats unmolested when we got back.  

I was a bit disappointed that we hadn't gotten to do any skiing, but the boats were safe and we had better confidence in our anchorage after a full day of south winds.  The high pressure was predicted to last for another couple days and we decided to make another run for the south coast (and our ski objective) the next day.  

Stay tuned for the dramatic ski attempt on the San Rafael Glacier in the next installment of the Voyage of the Rascal.  

When I sailed out of Puerto Montt, I was expecting to enter a world of cascading waterfalls, narrow fjords, picturesque islands, and frosty volcanic peaks.  But the reality is far from what I was expecting.  After all the hype, I found that Chile is just not that great.

The Fjords
I pulled out of Puerto Montt a few hours before dawn and pointed the Rascal south. By the time the sun was setting, we were navigating into the heart of the Andes with thousand foot cliffs on either side and snow capped peaks glimmering in the distance.  A glorious sunset ushered me into a snug anchorage between two islands.  

The next morning was absolutely gorgeous and the Rascal and I began to delve deeper into the mountains.  

I was surrounded by pristine forested mountainsides.  Sharp, craggy peaks could be seen peeking out in the distance.

Every now and then, you could spot a glacier in the depths of the Andes.

On my third morning in the fjords, I woke to clear skies and a dusting of snow up in the high country.  Winter is clearly on its way.

One tough thing about sailing in the fjords is finding a good spot to anchor.  You can imagine how the thousand foot cliffs that you can see above the waterline just continue down into the ocean.  Thus, all of the anchorages are very deep, and anchoring is really only possible in areas where a river or landslide has thrown enough debris into the fjords to fill them up.  Oftentimes you have to get very close to the cliffs to be able to get your anchor to hold at all.  I’ve been in a couple places now where my bow will be in 60 or 70 feet of water and my stern will only be in 20 or 25.  Typically you need to tie lines to shore to keep the boat secure.  It’s definitely a little nerve-wracking to have your rudder ten feet way from a bunch of sharp, point rocks, but its normally the only possibility.  The 15-20 ft tidal range compounds these issues.  

After rainstorms (ie: almost every day) there are hundreds of waterfalls, large and small that come spouting out of the walls of the fjords.  You've got to do some pretty stout bushwhacking, but oftentimes its possible to climb up to the base of them for a closer look.  Some are fed by rainfall, some by glacier melt, and others by springs.  Every single one I've tasted so far has been delicious!

As always, there were plenty of birds cruising around and I've also seen a few colonies of sea lions on rocky outcroppings.  

The Hot Springs
Chile’s predominately volcanic geology means that there are lots of hot springs bubbling up out of the ground.  One such place is at the very end of a beautiful isolated fjord, with the nearest town dozens of miles away.  It was one of the first places I visited and I immediately fell in love.

A dozen small tubs and baths had been carved out of the solid rock with tiny little channels to bring the water to each.  Depending on how hot you wanted your soak, you’d add some rocks to the channel to stem the flow, or remove them to get more hot water.  

I spent a few hours (and a few beers) soaking in the tub, relaxing, and listening to birds call from the forest that surrounded me.  

I thought about how incredibly crowded this place would be if it were in the United States... yet I had it all to myself.

I also spent some time anchored beside hot spring that was a little more built up and developed, with a small hotel and a couple of shepherd families living nearby.  It didn’t have quite the same natural charm as the first, but it did have a cute Chilean girl working there and we shared a couple of beers while the sun set.  

The People
After a particularly sketchy night (with bad weather and a mediocre anchorage), I decided to take refuge in a cove that was a few miles away.  There are lots of salmon farms (they are like big net cages that’re floating on the surface, but anchored to the bottom) around this part of Chile and this cove happened to have a big one.  I anchored near the outlet to a river and decided to cook some lunch.  A man in an old leaky wooden boat rowed up to say hello and I got into a good conversation with him.  

We ate lunch together in the Rascal and I learned that he had lived at this same small village his entire life.  He said he was normally a fisherman, but he is currently out of work and most of his family moved to a bigger town a couple dozen miles away.  He was very polite and also quite friendly and I've found these two traits to exist throughout Chile.  Nearly everyone is eager to meet and try to help foreigners like myself.  

I was surprised to find that even without a job, he still had enough money for a cell phone and satellite TV.  It’s interesting to see the amenities and possessions that people choose to spend their money on.  It’s also quite interesting to see just how far American culture spreads throughout the world – when I mentioned I was from Utah, he had the same response that I always got while I was living in China.  "KARL MALONNEEEEE!!!" (From the Utah Jazz).

Later that day, a couple of guys from the salmon farm motored up in a fancy work boat to tell me that I was anchored in a mediocre place (with the current from the river and the variable depth) and they offered for me to tie up to the salmon farm pontoon which was really well secured.  I moved on over and lo and behold, we started drinking beers on the Rascal.  

I spent the next couple of days hanging out with the salmon farmers, going on exploratory hikes during the day, eating dinner together with my new friends at night, and learning a bunch about salmon farming.  They were exceptionally hospitable and it was great to get to know them.  

The salmon farming process was totally fascinating.  They start with a bunch of tiny smelt from a salmon hatchery, pour them into a big cage in the ocean, feed them a blend of grain and dead sea creatures in pelletized form, and a year or two later, they’ve got a bunch of 10lb salmon ready for market.  They have secondary nets over the top and around the outside to keep birds and sea lions away from the fish and they’re very careful about monitoring the health and condition of the salmon.  Special attention is paid to oxygen levels in the salmon pens, which happened to be quite good while I was there.  All of the feeding was automated using computer programs and the entire operation was very clean and well tended.  

Depending on your perspective, salmon farming in Chile is either an environmental atrocity that is ruining one of the most pristine wild places on earth or an absolute godsend that is employing hundreds of thousands of Chileans that’ve been exploited by foreign businesses for hundreds of years.  I’m still not sure where I fall within that spectrum, but it was definitely interesting to get a more personal, educated perspective on the salmon industry.  

You also see lots of small boats around the islands that are fishing for hake or congrio (or perhaps diving for mussels and clams).  It seems to be very hard work and every fisherman I’ve approached has been super friendly and personable.  Normally they’ll even offer to give you some of their catch, which is super generous considering they make very little profit in the first place.  

I’ve also had a blast meeting and hanging out with other cruisers along the way.  You don’t see many sailboats in Chile, so when you do, it’s always interesting to chat and hear their story.  Most folks are on their way around the world, having come up from the Straights of Magellan or east someplace in the South Pacific.  Everyone has been much more friendly than the cruisers I'd happen across in Mexico, for instance.  

I spent a handful of days walking around towns, going for beach walks, and eating huge, cheap, delicious meals with my friends on SV Karma.  

Some of these small towns have ship builders that've been practicing the trade for generations and they work right out on the beach.  The tool of choice is generally the chain saw and they work by sight and select all of the wood by hand.  I spent a few hours watching these guys and never once saw anyone take a measurement.  It was beautiful to watch them work and the finished product looked strong but also somehow graceful.  

While the islands didn't have the same dramtic beauty as the fjords, they do have a really cool history and charm about them that I haven't seen elsewhere.  

The Fishes
Before I started sailing, I always used to see pictures of dolphins and sailboats and think, “Wow, that must be a once in a lifetime experience!”  Ever since I hit the waters off of California, I’ve found that there are dolphins absolutely everywhere.  Despite their prevalence, I still squeal like a little kid when I see them coming and their beauty and grace is nothing short of astonishing.  I’ve had a couple of really tremendous dolphin experiences lately.

The first came at the end of one long day of sailing.  The wind suddenly dropped off and a really thick fog fell around the Rascal with just a mile or two between me and my anchorage for the night.  It was a place I hadn’t been before, there were rocks around the entrance, and I could hardly see past the bow.  I was pretty damn nervous about it all, but I very slowly motored in, ringing my fog bell, listening for boats, and watching my depth sounder like a hawk.  Silence and whiteness surrounded me like a wool blanket.  All of a sudden, I heard this loud PUFFF right behind me, and I whirled around to see a dolphin appear out of the ether to come and greet me.  

He squirted off in a hurry, but the rest of his family came and did laps around the boat.  

I eventually found a good spot to anchor (though I could only just barely see the coast) and as soon as I got the hook down, the fog lifted off and a lovely sunset replaced it!

My second cool dolphin experience came while I was exploring in the Superhighway, my inflatable dinghy.  It has a 4hp outboard, and I’ve found if I inflate it really full, balance my weight just right, and steer really smoothly, I can get it to plane.  It normally goes about 4-5kts, but when its planing, it’ll go 10-12kts.  That feels really fast compared to the Rascal, and it also allows you to explore places that’d be really tough or time consuming to get to in the sailboat. 

One day, I was headed for a river that was about 10 miles away to see if I could manage some fishing.  As I skittered across a big bay and into the fjord, I heard a big splash off to my right.  A big pod was about a hundred yards away and closing fast.  They seemed really energetic, and they were obviously moving much quicker than they normally do to catch up with the Rascal.  It was like I was at the Running of the Bulls and I was in the middle of the pack.  They were splashing on all sides of me and they were clearly charging for all they were worth!

It was totally surreal to be so close to them, basically sitting down in the water in the Superhighway, and I could’ve easily reached out and touched one they were so close to the dinghy.  We were moving so fast and I was so fired up that I only managed a few blurry cameraphone pictures, but it was a really incredible experience.

I also had some really fantastic whale watching experiences.  I had been waiting out a long storm in an anchorage to the south of Chaiten for four days and I was slowly sailing my way back north on a rare east wind that was blowing down out of the mountains.  It felt tremendous to be sailing again, and I got to enjoy a really spectacular sunrise as I hoisted sail and got the kinks out of my system.  

As I passed Chaiten, I noticed a few odd clouds on the horizon that quickly dissipated.  “Just your standard Native American smoke signals,” I reckoned... until I saw the next one form… and it was clearly coming from the sea, not the land!  “THAR SHE BLOWWWWSSS!!!” I bellowed like a maniac.  

I hadn’t seen whales in months, so I got really fired up about it.  

In all, I would imagine I saw at least two or three dozen whales that day and after chatting with a couple of marine biologist friends and consulting some whale watching guides, I reckon they were from three species.  Thus, I’ve termed that day a Whale Watching Triple Crown, which is, of course, a prestigious event worthy of celebration. 

The first species was the fin whale, which I’ve spotted before up off the Oregon and Washington coasts.  They’re the second biggest whale species and they’re a very long, graceful animal.  

The second species I saw was the orca or “killer” whale.  They’re a a fair bit smaller than the other two species, and they’re actually not a whale at all, they’re really a dolphin.  That's beside the point, however.  

There is an excerpt I really love from a book about Antarctic exploration.

I didn't find them to be so loathsome, and I was quite impressed with the size of their ginormous dorsal fins.  

The third species I spotted on that day was the blue whale, which happens to be the largest creature that has ever lived on earth.  They're 100ft long, weigh 150 tons and they're 2.5 times bigger than a T-Rex.  They were hunted almost to extinction, but their population has been slowly rebounding.  Its exceptionally rare to see one and I was lucky enough to see one from about 100 yards away when it snuck up behind the Rascal.  He was so close that I could smell his breath when he exhaled and I can confirm that blue whales suffer from halitosis.  

The other scenery on the day of my Whale Watching Triple Crown didn't exactly suck.

The Park
If you’ve ever seen the movie 180 Degrees South, you might remember the private park that Doug Tompkins (former owner of The North Face) started down here in Patagonia.  It’s called Parque Pumalin and I’ve gotten to explore a couple of different parts of it now.  All of the land is absolutely beautiful and it’s nice to know that it will be protected.  

The park is left mostly wild and natural, but the infrastructure that they have put in is really well done.  You can tell they've really thought things through and designed systems with attention to detail and an eye towards sustainability.  

Most of the park is only accessible by boat and at their visitor center, they have a little organic farm that supplies park employees and visitors.  Its refreshing to contrast this approach with the massive car-based tourism thats prevalent at parks in the US.  

They really are doing something special in these parks and its more than just the conservation of the land.  Its also about educating people and planning for the future.  If you're curious about their philosophy, this is a good spot to learn more.  

While its easy for folks in the states to applaud the efforts of Tompkins as a conservationist, lots of people in Chile have a really negative opinion of him.  His conservation efforts have definitely put a damper on economic development (environmentally ruinous economic development) and lots of people are unhappy about the amount of power he has due to his enormous landholdings.  I've even heard well educated Chileans claim that he is buying all of the land to create a new Israel within the borders of Chile... as we and a few other pretty radical conspiracies.  I'm curious to see how Chilean sentiment evolves as time goes on, but for now, I'm just happy that there aren't any strip mining companies excavating the hot springs. 

The Volcanos
You can hardly look up in this country without seening a volcano.  They're all exceptionally majestic, ringed with snow, and just begging to be skied.  

Unfortunately, they're all quite challenging to access (until I can afford that chopper!) with lots of dense vegetation around their bases.  

You might also recongize this one (Volcan Corcovado) from 180 Degrees South.  It's the one they tried to climb with Yvonne Chouinard.  

The Storms
While the people and scenery have been absolutely awesome, the weather has been exactly the opposite.  This seems to be one of the universal truths of winter in Patagonia.  Cold.  Rainy.  Windy.  The weather in this part of the world is all dictated by an endless procession of low pressure systems that march across the southern ocean from west to east.  At this time of year, the wind is nearly always out of the north (or NW or NE) and occasionally it’ll fall dead calm after the passage of a front.  

The weather changes fast and it’s rarely predictable.  There have been a few occasions where I’ll be motoring along through a calm and I’ll see some dangerous looking clouds approaching.  Within five minutes it will be blowing 25-30 knots with rain and sleet whipping all around.   I've definitely spent a lot of time sailing with just a double reefed main and the jiblet up.  

Depending on the topography around you, the wind will sometimes get rocketed down the face of a mountainside into your anchorage.  Other times, it will all get funneled down a fjord and it is invariably always a headwind.  

In addition to the strong, unpredicatable winds, there are substantial currents.  Most everywhere has at least a knot of current that will change directions depending on the tide.  In tight passes and narrow fjords, the current increases to 2-4kts which is oftentimes a challenge for the Rascal to manage.  You've definitely got to plan carefully if you are trying to cover long distances.  

There have been a couple of really nasty storms with predicted winds up to 70kts.  I don’t have a wind speed indicator on the Rascal, but there were definitely some gusts approaching that neighborhood.  Luckily, I was able to find good anchorages (with great company) in time to weather each of them.  The anchoring technique down here often involves tying lines from each corner of the boat to a stout tree or rock on shore.   Thus, narrow, deep anchorages are prized and I've happened into a few gems already.  

Luckily I can keep the wood stove roaring when its really nasty out, and quickly step from the wet, bulstery, freezing cockpit down into a warm, dry, cozy Rascal.  

All-in-all, it was a hell of a trip and I feel like I've finally gotten a swig of the delicious brew that is Patagonia.  It wasn't enough to quench my thirst, though.  I'm gearing back up in Puerto Montt for some more exploration and scouting.  

I spent the following week tooling around Puerto Vallarta with my good friend, Jimmy.  Jimmy and I worked together at BD and became fast friends, bonding over cheap beer and good food.  His visit to Mexico was no exception to that rule.

The airport is within easy walking distance from a marina, so I decided to park the boat there for Jimmy's arrival.  He trundled down to the boat and we decided the best course of action would be to drink a beer and immediately embark on a culinary tour of old-town Puerto Vallarta.  The bus into town was quick and easy and we chowed down on a wide variety of tacos and burritos, from al pastor and carne asada to shrimp and octopus.  We might've even ventured into the gluttonous realm of queso fundido with extra chorizo.  Between the mountain of grub, all the traveling, and a handful of pacificos, we slept well that night.

The next morning, we concentrated all of our energies into provisioning the boat for the week ahead.  That, of course, had to start with a breakfast of chicken chilaquiles and arrachera.  There was a pile of weather brewing out in the pacific that was slated to come through that night, so after we got back from the grocery store, we elected to move to another marina that was a few miles up the coast.  The new marina was nothing short of incredible.  Unlike most marinas I stay at, this one was equipped with thirty foot tall slides that were shaped like crocodiles, a yacht club with multiple hot tubs, and two fully grown Bengal Tigers.  All for 25 USD per night.  That all might sound ridiculous, and certainly after sailing down the desolate Mexican coast, it felt pretty ridiculous to me, as well.

Jimmy and I made the most of our environs despite some rain that had begun falling and even managed to wrangle a long afternoon nap.  The next morning found us right back in the hot tub with the rain still falling consistently.  Eventually the rain slowly tapered off and we checked out of the marina to head up the coast to the town of La Cruz de Huanacaxtle.  It was a nice relaxing sail and we dropped the anchor just as the sun was setting.  The town of La Cruz, despite its proximity to the major tourist center of Puerto Vallarta, is quite a bit more down-to-earth and authentic feeling than the tourist towns surrounding it.  Jimmy and I jumped into the Superhighway and motored into the panga dock to see what sort of trouble we could get into.

We were pretty dang hungry after such a strenuous day of hard work, so after ambling the cobblestone streets of La Cruz for a bit, we settled down into a seafood restaurant (which seemed like a good bet based on all the fishing pangas we passed on the motor into town).  We decided on aguachiles, one of very first dishes I ordered when I arrived in Mexico 6 months before, and one of my favorites.  Aguachiles are based on the same principle as ceviche, where the acidic juice of a lime "cooks" the protein instead of heat.  In the case of aguachiles, the protein is shrimp and typically the sauce / juice is spicy.  Its almost always accompanied by cucumber, onion, and avocado, which makes for a very refreshing treat.

We spent the rest of the evening trundling around La Cruz, sampling beers that I hadn't tried before (the complement of beers that exist in Southern Mexico is quite a bit more extensive than the ubiquitous Corona-Pacifico-Tecate-Modelo that was available in Baja).  It was a picturesque little town, with lots of folks sitting out on their front stoops and plenty of cute little restaurants to explore.  The skies continued to clear the next morning, and we decided to set our sights on Sayulita, a fishing-village-turned-surfing-destination that was 15 or 20 miles up the coast.  

During provisioning, some thin-sliced ribeyes had caught our attention and we bought a couple packages of them.  That morning, they were just screaming to be turned into a breakfast of steak and eggs, so we obliged them (and managed to carmelize a few onions to keep them company).

As we rounded the corner to head north towards Sayulita, the wind fell off and we noticed some bait balls blowing up to the west of us.  The fish and birds were feeding aggressively on some sort of baitfish and we decided we wanted to get in on the fun.  We let the Rascal drift, loaded up the fly rods, and sped off in the superhighway.  We ventured a few casts into the midst of the craziness, but the dinghy seemed to scare the fish away to some degree.  Next, we decided to try just trolling a fly and we started spinning loops past the melee.  We finally started hooking into a few fish and Jimmy pulled in some feisty little jacks.  

Before we knew it, hunger pangs were assaulting us and we decided the only thing missing from our steak and egg breakfast extravaganza was cheese.  Thus, we used the rest of the leftover ribeye for some Oaxaca grilled cheese sandwiches and finished our sail to Sayulita.  

The second we rounded the corner into Sayulita, it was immediately clear that it was not a sleepy fishing village any more.  Enormous, luxurious houses and hotels blanketed every nook and cranny.  Honkees on stand-up-paddle-boards covered the water like an oil slick and there were enough people on the beach that it was tough to see the town.  We Superhighwayed it in to the beach and decided to do some exploring around town.  It seemed that tourist season was just winding up, and all the signs / restaurants were in English.  I can picture how it would've been a pretty incredible place 10-15 years ago, but we were relatively unimpressed with what it had turned into.  

Eventually we caught the scent of woodsmoke and we followed our noses down streets and alleyways until we came upon this scene.  

It was the glorious sight of a roadside Mexican grilled chicken stand.  It was clearly a family operation and though the proprietress was a bit surly, she definitely had the recipe right and the chicken came with rice, a glorious picante sauce, fresh tortillas, and some juicy grilled onions that really pulled the meal together.  It was nearly good enough to rival Pollo Lopez from up in San Carlos.  

In a grilled-chicken-induced fog, we waddled our way back out to the superhighway and headed back out towards the Rascal.  The swell was light, so the launching from the beach was easy, but for whatever reason the Tohatsu was reluctant to kick over.  9 times out of 10 it starts on the first pull... but... sometimes it doesn't.  Sometimes I'll forget to replace the kill-switch-lanyard and pull it ten times before it occurs to me.  Sometimes it doesn't like to be tipped on its side for too long.  Sometimes there is too much pressure in the gas tank.  Sometimes I'm not giving it enough gas.  Sometimes I'm not giving it enough choke.  This time, none of these things seemed to be the issue.  So I pulled and pulled and pulled until I thought I might expire.  Finally, on pull 25 or 30, it started up and purred like a kitten.  That Tohatsu can be a fickle beast.  

We made good use of the rest of the night by jamming out and drinking wine on the Rascal.  There was a glorious sunset and we were so full of chicken that we couldn't possibly consider eating anything for dinner. 

We got up early and bugged out of dodge.  We hugged the coast as we worked our way back to the south and ran into a lot of fancy vacation homes with private beaches and expansive balconies overlooking the Pacific.  We decided to anchor up in an undeveloped section and try our hand at some more fly fishing.  There was a particularly nice looking beach that we aimed at and fired up the Superhighway for a beach landing.  

From the Rascal, the swell seemed pretty friendly, and we figured the landing would be a piece of cake.  We watched a few small waves crash on the beach, peeked behind us, and figured we were good to go.  Into the surf zone we went, and all of a sudden a monster started looming behind us.

"Shit!" we both said and there was a moment of indecision.  We were right in the zone where I would normally cut the engine and tilt it up to avoid hitting the beach with the propeller.  But at the same time, this huge swell was building behind us, and in my mind the possibility still existed to try and whip the boat around and take the wave head-on, potentially before it started to break.  The moment of indecision doomed us in the end, and we were in exactly the wrong spot as it broke basically right on top of us.  I threw the engine in neutral and went over the side to try and pull us in towards the beach.  Jimmy thought I had just fallen out, and figured the engine was still in gear, so he hit the shifter and it roared in reverse.  Eventually we pulled the lanyard and dragged the superhighway - full of water - up onto the beach.  We were both in shambles and feeling pretty fortunate that we packed everything in a waterproof bag before attempting the beach landing.

Next we headed in opposite directions down the beach and made a half-hearted attempt to fly fish beyond the surf, but make no mistake, we were both thinking about only one thing: the launch back through the surf to return to the Rascal.  After a few casts, we both met up at the superhighway and gazed out at the swell to try and discern a pattern and plan our re-launch effort.  

I wasn't sure if the outboard had sucked up a bunch of sand on the landing and I wasn't sure if it would start quickly for the re-launch.  Given the size of the waves, that would obviously be a big problem.  After watching waves for about a half hour from a vantage point up in the jungle, we decided to go for it.  Jimmy would maneuver the superhighway out into the whitewater while I made attempts to try and get the engine started.  This would allow us to retreat from any monsters if we needed to, and also presumably avoid sucking more sand into the engine.  It was totally clear that trying to row through the surf would be unsuccessful.  

We waited for a mellow wave train and went at it with reckless abandon.  I got five or six strong pulls in and it sounded like it wanted to start, but it never quite managed to catch.  Another big one was looming beyond the surf, so we tilted the engine back up and retreated to the beach.  We felt like we had really dodged a bullet and we were both patting ourselves on the back for devising such a good scheme to avoid the big breakers.  Most of the waves were breaking in the 3-4 foot range at that point, and we waited for another lull.  I launched myself back into the dinghy and Jimmy continued to push and wade out until he was up to his waist (where it was challenging to see out beyond the surf).  Again, it sounded eager to start, but didn't start on the first four or five pulls.  I was fully focused in on the engine and I was really pulling with all my gusto.  I heard Jimmy begin to murmur something just as the Tohatsu roared to life.  It was go time, and I revved her up, threw her into gear, and pointed her out into the open ocean.  Jimmy dragged himself aboard over the oarlocks and as we looked out into the surf, our eyes got big.  

Immediately in front of us was a wave just starting to break.  It was perhaps a 3-4 footer and I remember thinking, "Yikes, this is a big one!"  I managed to keep the Superhighway square to the wave and put the pedal to the metal.  Jimmy grabbed the gear and the fly rods (luckily packed away in their cases) and we both shifted our weight towards the bow as we climbed up and over the tumbling white water.  

What we saw beyond that wave scared the shit out of us.  It was an absolute beast: easily 6 or 8 feet tall and looming way out beyond where the others were breaking.  This wave was literally twice the size of all the waves we'd seen when we were watching from the jungle.  After that morning's experience, I knew that indecision wasn't an option and once again opened up the Tohatsu to full throttle.  Adrenaline was pumping and three or four seconds transpired when I thought that we might get past it before it broke.  We had shipped a bunch of water on the last wave, however, and the Superhighway was driving like a barge with that much weight in her.

The wave kept building and building, the engine was laboring, the boat was inching further out into the surf, and Jimmy and I were swearing like pirates.  We started to rise up on it just as the top edge of wave curled over.  I yelled "HIGH SIDE!" and Jimmy dove forward into the bow like a goddamn 300lb linebacker.  I let off on the throttle in an effort to keep the nose of the boat down as much as possible, and dove forward myself.  The nose kept rising higher and higher, with the boat tipping to an impossible angle (about 80 degrees I'd estimate), when finally the bow punched through the top of the wave and began to flatten out.  The wave had essentially broken right over the top of us, yet somehow we didn't get thrown over backward.  

Jimmy looked back at me with wide eyes, and I responded with a wild-eyed stare of my own.  We had made it.  

The Superhighway was literally full of water.  It had been filled to overflowing by the wave and we slowly barged our way back to the Rascal so that we could bail her out.  We were both in disbelief at what had happened and that we had made it through.  Jimmy started tying up to the Rascal when we got there, and let out a little grunt.  "Are you ok?" I asked.  We didn't realize it at the time, but he had managed to crack a couple of ribs in the effort.  Type two fun, for sure.

If we had somehow rigged a go-pro in the front of the raft, the footage would've been priceless.  

A couple of frosty cold Pacificos calmed our nerves a bit, and we decided to try and fish from the Superhighway along the coast without actually venturing back to the beach.  We strung our fly rods back up and started casting around a bit, with the person in the front fishing and the person in the back rowing to avoid scaring fish away with the outboard.  

The fishing wasn't particularly successful, but we were treated to a rather stunning performance by a pod of whales that was  a couple hundred yards away.  They were clearly playing the air guitar and I could just barely make out the tune of "Octopus's Garden" over the crashing of the waves.  

We eventually sailed the rest of the way down to a little tourist town called Punta de Mita just as the sun was setting and we decided to motor past the breakwater to one of the palapa restaurants for dinner. 

We hemmed and hawwed around the menu for a while, having trouble making up our mind because everything looked so tasty.  Eventually the waiter came back over and suggested that we get the special grilled combo plate.  "What does that involve?" we asked innocently.  He spent about five minutes listing the incredible variety of fresh seafood that it encompassed and we both looked at each other.  "You had me at langostino," I told him, and the wheels were set in motion.  It came out on a big lunch tray and it had everything from grilled octopus to a whole pan fried fish, not to mention some crab and shrimp and a bunch of other tasty little treats.  

For a couple weeks, we had been looking at pictures of this "hidden beach" near Puerto Vallarta that looked incredible.  Rumor had it that it was created while the Mexican government was doing some bombing on the island decades ago, but I think more likely is just that water slowly ate away the limestone to form it.  Its basically a hollowed out part of an island that is shaped like an oval with an absolutely perfect sand beach in the center.  You can only get into it by swimming through this crazy little cave.  We didn't know its exact location, but we knew it was in the Marieta Islands, and we knew that later in the day, it would likely be mobbed with tourists.  We did a bunch of google earth surveying, consulted our guidebook, and looked at the charts, but we couldn't seem to figure out exactly where it was.  We reckoned the cave entrance would be fairly visible when we got close.  Thus, we embarked at the break of dawn and headed out towards the Marietas.  

There are a couple of Islands in the group, and our best guess was that the hidden beach was on the second one out.  We passed the first one without seeing anything notable, but after making a loop around the second, we became increasingly convinced that it was on the first.  We circled back, but by the time we got close, there were a dozen tour boats circling just offshore.  We "found" it at least.  

There were some cops (the island is a national park of some sort) and they told us that anchoring wasn't allowed, but that we could grab a mooring.  The only mooring, of course, was occupied by a 100ft long tourist catamaran and there were dozens of honkies already bobbing around in the water.  Eventually the big tour boat vacated and we muscled our way in to the mooring.   

It must've been a trial for Jimmy with his broken rib, but we jumped in the water and swam towards the tiny cave.  We eventually broke through into the center and it was just as incredible as all of the pictures had made it look.  It might've been covered in tourists, but the feature itself was incredible - a picture perfect sand beach, surrounded by this incredible rock, with waves slowly lapping at the edge of it all.

We peeled out pretty quickly and decided we should try and get to a town called Yelapa on the southern shore of Banderas Bay.  Wind was fairly light, but we had plenty of daylight and we sailed along at a few knots for a while.  Eventually we decided to start up the engine and I went down below to make another ribeye lunch.  As we were sitting in the cockpit chowing down, we looked over at the reel that we had been trolling with and I let out a, "Whoa!"

The line had paid out entirely while I was down below (the drag is pretty quiet and we just hadn't heard it) but it was still attached to the reel.  I started cranking it in and something was clearly on the other end.  There was an obscene amount of line on the reel, but between Jimmy and I, we managed to get it back to the boat over the course of about 20 minutes.  It wasn't particularly hard reeling, so we figured it was something fairly small.  When it got close to the boat, however, we realized we were wrong.  It was actually a good sized dorado.  

Oddly enough, when we finally got it aboard is the moment when it realized it ought to start fighting, and it got to flapping all over the place.  It was nearly impossible to restrain him long enough to get the hook out, but we eventually did and threw him back (we had just eaten a big steak lunch!).  We managed to snap a picture before we tossed him back, and it looks kinda like I'm playing a fish-shaped fiddle.    

When we got close to Yelapa, we saw a motorboat rocketing out of the little cove, and we were perplexed as to what he was doing.  He had to have been doing 50 or 60 mph and was slamming across the swell like crazy.  As he got closer to us, we broke out the zoom lens and saw just the tiniest bit of a line extending out of the boat.  We scanned the sky above the boat, but could see nothing.  Eventually (just a spec above the ridgelines) we caught sight of a paragliding wing that seemed impossibly far away.  We figured there was no way the two were connected (the paraglider was probably 3/4 of a mile away from the boat), but after some more zooming, we realized it was the case.  Incredible!

We were pretty astounded as we pulled in.  The bay itself is beautiful, with huge, rugged, jungle-covered mountains rising right up out of the ocean.  We took the dinghy in to shore and decided to head off exploring for a little bit.  Visiting the town of Yelapa is like taking a trip back into time.  There are no roads or cars and the town is only accessible by boat.  It is divided by a river the flows into the sea, and there is no bridge, so you've got to wade across it if you want to get to the other side.  In fact, Yelapa didn't even have electricity until a handful of years ago.  

We walked up and down hillsides on the cobblestone trails, with no directions or names marked on anything.  There were a bunch of tiny hostels and restaurants nestled here and there between homes.  We passed the occasional donkey here and there and eventually found a little store that sold us a few beers.  We went back down towards the beach to enjoy them next to some old fisherman.  On the beach below us, there was a group of kids playing soccer beside the sea.  Occasionally the ball would get kicked way out and someone would have to swim into the waves for it.  

We eventually found our way to a restaurant named "Tacos y Mas" and had a bunch of different tasty tacos.  There was an item on the menu called "Raicilla" and asked our waiter, a large, jovial guy, what exactly Raicilla was.  He explained that it is like tequila except its made in the woods above town in an old bathtub.  We immediately knew we had to try some.  We each took a shot and were very impressed - it is totally delicious.  It tastes smokier than tequila, sort of like mezcal.  I think the best way to describe it is this: raicilla is to tequila as scotch is to bourbon.  

We eventually made our way back towards the boat with our bellies full and a pink sunset lingering on the horizon.  

The next morning was pretty lazy, but we decided to stay in Yelapa for another night and we went up to explore a waterfall above town.  We were accosted by a few people selling tourist junk on the hike up, but we eventually came upon this little workshop on the side of the trail.  We immediately recognized our waiter from the night before and found that his name was Jorge.  We struck up a conversation with him and found that when he isn't waiting tables, he turns gorgeous vases and bowls out of tropical hardwoods that grow in the woods around town.  He had a respectable little open-air woodshop setup and he was in the process of turning some stuff down.  He was quick with a laugh and a smile and let us know that any purchase would come with a free shot of raicilla.  Jimmy was thinking about buying some gifts and while he was contemplating his options, Jorge showed me a hidden cabinet full of moonshine-raicilla he was selling.  I asked him if the "free shot with every purchase" rule also applied to the Raicilla.  He let out a loud hearty laugh and replied that raicilla purchases came with not one, but two shots of raicilla!  One shot for you and one shot for your country, he said.  

I couldn't turn down a bargain like that, and Jorge even joined me on the second shot!

The waterfall was surrounded by dense jungle, but it was beautiful as well.  We were somewhat surprised to find that a little bar was nestled in next to the waterfall and we stopped for a beer before hiking back into town.  

We eventually ambled back down into town and noticed a few sizeable yacths had joined us in the cove.  We spent the rest of the afternoon reading on the boat, relaxing on the beach, eating local oysters, and mixing up raicilla margaritas (raicillaritas).  Yelapa is one hell of a charming town.

Jimmy had to fly out the following day around midday, so we got up at the crack of dawn, nursing raicilla hangovers, and spent the morning sailing back to Puerto Vallarta.  I dropped him off at the fuel dock with just enough time to race back to the airport and catch his flight.

All-in-all, it wasn't a particularly successful fishing trip, but we definitely had plenty of incredible meals, explored some really neat towns and villages, and enjoyed plenty of rest and relaxation.

We woke up with the sunrise and after we had finished our bacon and eggs, a light southerly breeze greeted us.  It wasn't much, but it was consistent, and we hoisted the spinnaker and found that we were making three and a half knots.  Good enough, we figured, to take us where we needed to go. 

The day passed in a similar manner to the day before it, and the day before that.  I swung in my hammock on the back deck and read my book.  Nothing much was said on days like these and we were free to gaze out across the water, contemplate the scenery, and let the boat sail itself.  I looked down into the water for a while with the sun at my back and watched as it shimmered a deep navy blue color.  There were layers and folds in it, and it looked as if it was producing its own light.

Most days we'd catch 3 or 4 fish as we were sailing along, but it was already mid afternoon and we hadn't even had a nibble.  "That's odd," I thought, "I wonder where all the fish are..." We were passing close to a point of land and an up-welling in the seafloor that might bring nutrients to the surface.  I reckoned that there must've been hundreds of fish swimming somewhere down below me in that shimmering water.  "Oh well," I said to myself, "Might as well finish this chapter before we get to the anchorage."

The handline took off like a rocketship.  Often times it starts with an aggressive spin and then slowly calms down, but this one was different.  My heart started beating faster and I put a hand on the spindle to try and slow it down a bit.  As I did, I looked up towards the horizon and scanned for signs of a jump.  Normally a dorado will spend some time with jumping antics when it first gets hooked.  This fish wasn't spending time doing anything but running.  The pressure I put on the spool didn't seem to phase him and the spool was starting to burn my hand.  

"This is big," I told Autumn, "maybe even bigger than that one dorado I caught with Wade.  Could you grab my gloves?"  Was I full of shit?  Maybe he wasn't so big and he was just running hard.  "I guess we'll find out," I figured in my head.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something dark break the water.  Definitely wasn't a dorado, but too far away to make any guesses about what he might be.

I finally got the pair of gloves on, and still he was running.  "I wonder if the big bastard even knows hes hooked..." I was able to put pressure on him more evenly with the gloves on, and I started to sock it to him.  I looked down at the spool.  "He must've taken at least two hundred yards already," I reckoned from the dwindling amount remaining. Eventually his run slowed down and Autumn dropped the jib and maneuvered the boat so that I could try and work him from the side deck instead of having to deal with all the clutter around the cockpit.  The tension in the line was high, but I managed to get a few feet of it back.  He didn't like that one bit and took off running again.  The boat was pitching around in the swell, and it was tough to keep a solid stance to work him from.  After running another 30 yards or so, he broke the surface of the water and I saw something I hadn't ever seen before.  A bill.

"You see that thing?" I yelled at Autumn.  "Nope," she answered as she continued to maneuver the boat.  "He's got a bill on him," I hollered back to her.  She responded with an excited giggle.  He was maybe 250 yards away at that point, and it was tough to gauge how big he might be.  Maybe around 3 or 4 feet?  Tough to say, but man was he fighting.

The sweat was starting to build on my brow, and I kept fighting him, slowly taking line in whenever he would give it up.  Water was jumping from the taut line like crazy and I knew that I was right on the edge of snapping it the whole time.  Inch by inch, I worked him in closer to the boat and I noticed that he was diving down deep in the water as I pulled him towards the boat.  Perhaps fifteen minutes of this tug of war match continued and I managed to win 70 or 80 yards of line back.  He must've gotten a wild hair, because the line started rising again, and I could tell he was heading up for a jump.  "Maybe he wants to get a peek at us," I speculated silently to myself.  Autumn had the camera ready this time, and as he broke the water, we both gasped.

"Sheeeeeit!" I yelled, "He's bigger than I thought!"  He was still a little more than 100 yards away and I revised my earlier mental estimate to 5 feet.  Getting some fresh air must've invigorated him, because the tug of war match got more intense.  He put in a few strong runs, followed by a couple lulls where I was able to bring line in.  He stayed near the surface for a while and started making zig zags every time he would speed away from the boat.

I looked over towards Autumn.  We were both still wide-eyed.  "Do you think its even possible to land a fish like this?  The handline is only 40lb test.  That might be the only good look we ever get at him," I reasoned.  She shrugged her shoulders, but gave me a look that instilled confidence in my angling skills.  "Better get the gaff out just in case," I told her.  I could feel my hands starting to tire from gripping the handline, but I knew this was no time to take a break.  Each wrap brought him that much closer to the boat, and as he got closer, he started swimming sideways to the boat, sliding his way around the port side, then the starboard, and then back around to port.  Each time he passed a rigging wire, I'd have to transfer the spool between hands, and I was mighty nervous that I might drop it.  

I managed to keep the pressure on him, however, and about 45 minutes into the fight I got him to within 50 yards of the boat.  I could tell he was starting to tire, with slower runs, and a bit less vigor.  The line started rising to the surface and again he jumped, and this time he really took to the air.  The spray leaped off him and he cleared the water entirely, with a mighty thrash of his tail and a fearsome shake of his bill.  There was no mistaking that he was a monster.

I continued to take in line, and each time he got close to the surface i was afraid he would throw the hook and all would be for naught.  Somehow it stayed caught in his mouth and I could tell the battle was drawing to a close.  When he was just 20 yards from the boat he kept sticking his head out of the water and shaking his bill, and each time I hoped against hope that the hook wouldn't bend and the line wouldn't snap.

You could see his body now, and you could tell that he was a girthy creature, with a dark purplish blue back and shining silver sides.  "How are we going to land this thing?" Autumn asked, "Is it dangerous to get him on the boat?"  I immediately answered, "We'll gaff him and pull him up, I'm sure it'll all be fine," but in the back of my mind, I started wondering about the wisdom of such a plan.  I had heard a few weeks before of a marlin that had literally stabbed a hole in the hull of a boat with his bill.  "I better be damn careful," I thought to my self.  

I knew it would be really difficult to try and land him into the cockpit, so I slowly worked him around to the side of the boat.  When I finally got him in close, you could tell he was exhausted.  I was blown away that he still hadn't broken the line, and I managed to maneuver him over to the port beam.  Once he came alongside it was finally clear just how massive he was.  He easily took up a third of the length of the boat.

He gave a few final thrashes beside the boat and I called to Autumn for the gaff.  My hands were trembling with excitement and adrenaline.  He looked up at me with his big dark eyes and gave me a look of obstinance, but he knew he was defeated.  I knew the final moment was here.  His body came around broadside and I gingerly slipped the gaff into the meat of his big back.  He didn't make any sign of noticing this, and with a grunt and yank, I managed to hoist him up onto the fore deck of the Rascal.

We both stepped back for a moment to stare at this incredible fish.  I couldn't believe how enormous he was.  He didn't even fit on the front of the sailboat.  I was stunned.  His body caught the sunlight and violet spots glimmered, with bright blue accents on his fins.  His massive dorsal sail was extended and it was covered in iridescent spots, seawater splashing off of it.  Truly an incredible, downright gorgeous beast.  

I bent down to remove the hook, and it slipped right out of the corner.  I knew that Autumn and I couldn't possibly eat a fish this big, and after such a valiant fight, I felt that he deserved to return to the sea that was his home.  

I couldn't help but document an occasion this monumental, so I half-hoisted, half-bearhugged his hundred pound, nine foot long body up for some pictures.  This was no easy task.

That accomplished, I lowered him back down on the deck, gave him a pat on the tail, and slid him back into the sea.  

I sat down on the front hatch, completely in shock of what had just happened.  Some people pay thousands of dollars to go out on sport fishing day trips and I had managed to land this big, beautiful sailfish with a 5 dollar handline and a .69 cent rubber squid from the deck of my home.  I read "The Old Man and the Sea" when I was a little kid, and ever since then, I've wondered what it would be like to really catch a massive fish.  Surely Don Rodrigo the Magnificent wasn't quite as big as the fish Hemingway describes, but he surely was enormous and every bit as beautiful.  

I reckon he is the finest fish I'll ever catch.