Isla de los Estados

Two days ago we arrived here on Isla de los Estados (Staten Island), in the bay of Puerto Hoppner. Yesterday morning we changed our anchor position to inside Puerto Hoppner, an incredible anchorage, where however we are not anchoring but we are tied to trees on land with 4 lines. We're alone in this mountainlake-like environment, in the middle of many mountains up to almost 900m high, with 3 little rivers from waterfalls coming into the basin. We also found two real mountain lakes. If I didn't know better I would say we anchored in the alps. It's very humid here, rain every day. Today we were lucky to catch some sunrays, which we used to walk a bit through the bushes and up the hill behind our boat. It was a cool hike. Almost vertical uphill, so it was more climbing than just hiking. In total we were on our way (including taking the Dinghy across to where we first went, go back to boat, change clothes and hike up the hill) for almost 6 hours. With all the cool fresh air we were quite tired afterwards, but happy. It is so beautiful here. A complete contrast to the desert (Steppe) we had been to before (which I still loved a lot), more like home here. Up at about 700m there is still snow in the mountains around us. Hard to beleive that a week ago I went into the water in Puerto Deseado on that day with the hot summer desert wind and now we have snow around us. The water temperature dropped from about 14°C in Puerto Deseado to prbably about 8°C here. Hanno was very brave yesterday, put a wet suit on and all the neoprene appliances we could find and went into the water to check our Bow Thruster (Bugstrahlruder). Thank god it was a quiet moment without wind, so it was really not that cold outside (I still wore 3 sweaters). Talking about wind. I still can't believe we have been so lucky with the weather coming down here. Besides the strong wind for the last 6 hrs down here there was really nothing. Yesterday half the day and all day today there is no wind at all. I have a feeling as if we were at land, cause there is no movement wahtsoever in the boat. Strange, so different from what I had expected. Well, the place we're in right now protects us from all sides. Once I post the pictures you'll see what I mean.

Tomorrow afternoon we'll use the high tide to get out of this bay, we only have a passage of about 5m width to go through with a boat width of 4,36m! Then off to the Beagle channel. After about 100nm we'll anchor in a bay, take a short break and then do the remaining 50nm to Ushuaia. How exciting, we'll be there shortly!!! I plan to rent a car to drive around the parks and glaciers a bit. Marcus says it's sooo beautiful, breathtaking views. I can't wait.

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