The Long Road Northward

12/9/2015

After finally accomplishing the main goal of the Voyage of the Rascal (skiing from the boat!), and after spending an idyllic week in Laguna San Rafael, it was time to start sailing northward again. We were a bit worried that we'd get pinned down with northerly winds, but the return trip was relatively casual - we even had time for a few bonus adventures!

We woke up to another crystal clear day and a fresh layer of ice on the deck. It was finally the appointed day for our departure, but we had to wait for an ebb tide before we could make our way down the river (the current would be too strong otherwise) so we had all morning (or so we thought) to spend in the laguna. Having realized this the night before, Clint and I decided that it would be pretty damn cool to put his extra thick wetsuit to use and do some diving around the icebergs.

I went over to Karma to suit up and then we took off across the glassy early-morning waters of the laguna to a suitable-looking berg. I’d only ever done free diving before, but Clint had a hookah (like scuba diving except you have a line to the surface instead of a tank on your back), so we decided to put it to use and I was able to stay down for quite a while, checking out the nooks and crannies of the berg. Visibility wasn’t great, thanks to the glacial sediment tilled up in the water, but I got to do a fair bit of exploring, and I can certify that the amount of ice below the waterline is indeed much larger than that which pokes out at the top.

It was definitely a cool introduction to diving and with the thick wetsuit, it wasn't as cold as you'd expect (though it definitely wasn't warm either.

The day remained dead calm and as we made our way towards the exit of the Laguna we collected a bunch of bergy bits to fill up our icebox.

When we got to the exit, were surprised to find that the tide was still flooding. That meant 4+ kts of current with huge ice bergs flowing out of the river at you. Clearly our tide tables for the region were wrong, so we decided to

There wasn't a cloud in the sky all day and we finally got a good look at San Valentin - a 4000m peak that absolutely towers over all of the other surrounding mountains.

Photo: Jess Oundjian

Up an adjacent river valley, you could just make out glacier that was falling down towards the sea. You could tell there was a river that lead up to it, but the tide didn't quite reach the calving edge of the glacier. My nautical charts made it seem like you could navigate up the river, but the guide books mentioned that the anchorage at the river outlet was no good. I was intrigued, but we decided to pass it by for the time being.

A blazing Patagonian sunset ushered us into our anchorage and we spent the night anchored in a sheltered cove beside an abandoned sawmill.

It was calm once again when we awoke, and I was planning on heading north, but I couldn't manage to get that other glacier out of my head. I had the anchor half way up before I finally decided to go for it. We made a big bacon-and-egg breakfast and jumped into the superhighway for a reckon trip to the river outlet.

The wind slowly built as we were crossing the straight and by the time we got to the other side, we were fully surfing down waves (which is a rarity with two people in the Superhighway) and the wind wasn't showing any signs of abating. We soon crossed a line in the water where the cloudy river water (that was full of glacial sediment) mixed with the cold, clear seawater. We had the poor fortune of arriving right at low tide and the delta at the end of the river got shallow really quickly. We couldn't see more than a few inches through the cloudiness, but our trusty propeller soon found the bottom with a horrendous clanking noise. I knew it was only a mile or two up to the glacier, but there was no way to route find and we didn't want to completely destroy the prop in the process. I think with high tide or perhaps more time to pick your way through, it would be feasible, but we didn't have either, so we decided to head back to the boat.

The return trip was entirely less fun than the initial trip and the wind had picked up to 15+ kts against the tide running in the opposite direction, which translated into 4-5ft waves. We spent the following 45 minutes getting completely douched by each passing wave and we were both completely drenched, shivering, and unhappy by the time we got back to the Rascal. We lit a fire, made some tea and settled down in for a nap and a warmup.

A half hour later, the current had flipped and Karma happened to be sailing by the anchorage. At this point, if we wanted to continue north, the current would be running against us through the second pass and we decided to let Karma test the waters before we charged out to do battle. They reported 3-4 kts of current through the choke, which is the limit of the Rascal's ability, but we decided to fire up the engine and go for it. With the engine racing, we just made it through and quickly covered the next few miles to the next anchorage.

With bad weather in the forecast, we decided to spend several days there, going on little adventures with Clint and Reina, collecting our wits, making huge delicious dinners, and working on boat chores.

When the weather finally broke, we started making our way north through the fjords again. We took a different route on that we had on the way down and the weather was super variable, changing from dead calms to strong gusty headwinds back to dead calms and eventually to strong, consistent tail winds. The territory we passed through was breathtaking and we passed through some cool anchorages along the way.

The time had finally come to say goodbye as Clint and Reina were headed south towards Tierra Del Fuego and Jess and I had to make our way back north to Puerto Montt. We had dinner on the Rascal for a change that night and polished off the remainder of the wine that we'd been carefully nursing for the last week. Hugs ensued and we planned a rendezvous a couple months later.

The next day we sailed to the tiny island outpost town of Puerto Aguirre. Its in the middle of a huge archipelago and there aren't any other towns nearby. We had a great day of sailing to get there and our anchorage was nice and snug, with exceptional views of the surrounding volcanos.

We charged into town as fast as our legs could carry us and felt like aliens exploring a new world after almost a month at sea without resupply. We chatted with the friendly folks at the navy office, walked across the street for a cold beer and a big ole plate of steak a lo pobre, and started buying provisions at one of the handful of stores in town. We'd very nearly run out of fresh vegetables, meat, and bread so the resupply was sorely needed.

We trudged back out to the Rascal's anchorage well after dark and on the row back to the boat we were treated to an absolutely stupendous display of phosphorescence. It was like the entire sea was aflame and the movement of the superhighway was enough to ignite a green bonfire on all sides. That, combined with a sky full of twinkling stars, was almost more than we could handle and we spent a long time rowing in circles and marveling at the natural beauty all around us.

We still had plenty of provisioning to do, so we took the dinghy in to the municipal dock the next morning to load it up with food, wine, beer, fuel, and any other little treats we could find in the nooks and crannies of Puerto Aguirre.

We had been thinking about spending another night there, but a perfect south breeze had sprung up, our larder was once again full, and it seemed like a shame to waste a perfect sailing day. We hauled in the anchor, raised the spinnaker, and started threading our way through the islands once again. It was a really warm day and we decided later that afternoon that some rum-pineapple drinks were in order.

I can hardly imagine a nicer afternoon of sailing and as we pulled into a old favorite anchorage, a gorgeous pastel-y sunset decided to grace us with its presence.

Another day of perfect downwind sailing brought us to the exit of the archipelago and it was once again time to cross the Gulf of Corcovado. We had a big feast (braised buffalo turkey leg pasta with whiskey gingers!) from our new stores of fresh food that night, played a few games of cribbage, and prepared for a really big day of sailing. A fish hawk came and visited us while we were lounging around on deck and we had an absolutely stupendous view of the towering volcanos of the surrounding cordillera. We could just make out Corcovado, Melimoyu, and Yanteles from our anchorage.

We left around 3am the next morning and I set a course by Orion's Belt. There wasn't too much boat traffic and a nice following breeze pushed us along at 4-5 kts. Eventually light started dancing along the skyline and the Andes slowly carved their place out of the horizon.

The glorious sunset and the extra 20 miles made our early departure totally worth it and the wind slowly picked up as we continued northward. Similar to our last transit of the Gulf of Corcovado, the tidal current was running against the wind all morning and some truly hellacious waves started building. I decided to head up front to pole out the jib and Carly (the mechanical windvane that steers the boat) picked that exact moment to do a really bad job steering. We ended up sideways to the wave train and a big 10 ft breaker struck us square on the beam. It was enough to tip us over 60 or 70 degrees and I ended up getting almost completely submerged as the wave broke over us. The inside of the cabin was also an absolute mess as well, with some extra sticky murta jam mixed with shards of broken glass scattered everywhere. To top things off, Poseidon must've decided to break open the dry-goods locker and a healthy heap of quinoa had exploded over the top of the sharp, sticky mess.

Once I got all of that cleaned up, it was time for breakfast and a couple of breakfast burritos improved our disposition considerably. Volcan Corcovado got closer and closer as we continued to tick off miles and by lunch time, you could see the vents spewing hot gasses that're scattered around the western side.

A halo around the sun that afternoon heralded a change in the weather in the next couple of days.

We managed a whopping 75 miles that day and pulled into our appointed anchorage about an hour before sunset, ready for a hot meal (in the form of a big paprikash roasted chicken basted in bacon grease) and an early bedtime.

We knocked out another good stretch of distance the following day, which brought us to the entrance to Pumalin Park, the national park championed and founded by the late Doug Tompkins, an exceptional conservationist and an environmental visionary. Tompkins bought up a bunch of pristine Chilean wilderness that was at risk of irresponsible development and donated it back to the Chilean people in the form of a brilliantly designed national park.

We pulled in to a snug little anchorage near the ferry landing ramp and found that a fishing boat had beat us to the punch. They were kind enough to let us raft up to them (there wouldn't have been enough space for the both of us otherwise) and we traded them a 6 pack of Escudo for a bunch of shellfish they'd just plucked off of the ocean floor. They even threw in a dozen "locos" which are something of a cross between an enormous snail and an abalone. They have a pretty damn intimidating look about them and the texture (extra damn chewy) is pretty tough to get past. Jess was valiant enough to try one, but elected not to partake in the finished dish.

Freshly de-shelled and awaiting their final cleaning

Nothing like a garlic butter herb tomato wine sauce to soften the little bastards up!

We moved a couple miles away the next day to a sheltered little nook cut into the coastline. Despite how close we were to shore, we were still in 150ft of water which goes to show how absurdly deep these fjords are.

We spent that afternoon exploring the park and drinking out of pristine mountain streams. I've seen lots of different towns and buildings in Chile that make use of small hydropower installations and Parque Pumalin is no exception. They're beautiful systems because they run 24/7 (unlike solar or wind) and unlike large hydro projects with big dams, they have minimal impact on the surrounding ecosystem. All you need is water and a change in elevation, which Chile happens to have in spades! Most have a small diversion which takes a bit of the stream and the turbines themselves are just big, old electrical motors running in reverse.

The following morning we caught up on our journals and photo editing and watched a movie while the rain fell outside. By midday, the sky had cleared and we decided to try and make a few miles before sunset. We got out of our nook, found the wind was on our nose, blowing up the fjord, and the engine promptly coughed, sputtered, and died. I left Jess up in the cockpit to tack back and forth up the narrow fjord while I dove down below to investigate in the engine compartment. After a half hour of filter cleaning, line bleeding, diesel tank filling, and more line bleeding, we were back in action and pulled into the village of Buill just before sunset. A big, homemade chicken noodle soup rounded out the evening and we slept like babies.