Driving the Beagle Channel

On wednesday afternoon we left Puerto Williams to master our way through the Beagle Channel. ON the first trip we made it to a bay just west of the boarder to Argentina, Caleta Ferrari. On our first day there we took the chance to sleep long and then four of us went to land, Marcus stayed on board. Willi and Alexandra went hiking, Iris and I went horsebackriding. The area is very beautiful for the horsebackriding tour. Unfortunately we were a bit unlucky. It took the guy 2,5 hours to find the horses so by the time we started the tour it already started raining. After a while it was pouring so badly that we asked to turn around. Jeans were wet and it was very cold outside. So after an hour we were back to the place, where Alex and Willi were already waiting. Nevertheless we enjoyed our ride through the wilderness, through creeks and strong rivers where we had to hold our feet up as high as the head of the horse to not get soaking wet. We all enjoyed our visit on land, although it took a day for our stuff to dry - my jeans are still wet. Yesterday was a rainy day, we all stayed on board, relaxed, played cards....
We are very lucky to have a cook, Willi, on board. The last 3 days he has prepared wonderful dinners after my dinner the first day. But, he is on vacation too, so I have to see that we equally distribute the cooking. This is the first time Alita travels with more girls on board than men. 3:2 ratio.

From the weather report we saw that today the weather was supposed to be better so we wanted to head out very early to be able to make the next distance of 40 miles to an area, where there is ice swimming in the water from the glacier, so we have to get there with daylight. Just as we had lifted the anchors this morning 4am local time I radioed to the Chilenian coast guard just to receive a "no go". We were not allowed to leave the bay until further notice cause of wind with 30 knots and 1,5m waves in the next passage we wanted to go through. I tried my best, but they did not allow us to go. I tried again 1,5hrs later, no reception of radio signal. Then, at 9:15 local time, we finally got permission to continue our trip, but now we can't go where we wanted to go, we're too late and too slow. Well, that's lfe at sea. And especially in Chile, where the coast guard has to give you permission for every step you make (or better every nautical mile you drive or sail). What can you do, it's for our safety. Meanwhile we have 22knots of wind and 1m wave against us again and head for Caleta Morning. So long.

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Bye bye Ushuaia and Argentina

Loved it here, will come back one day.

Pictures of Ushuaia

Some of you have been waiting for them, here they are. Some pictures in and around Ushuaia. I started with my favourtie ones, which I tool yesterday hiking in the Tierra del Fuego National park, almost at the top of the Glaciar Guanaco. The view was breathtaking and more exciting than I had hoped, especially since I did not think I'd get up this far in the short time I had. The hike from down at the lake, which you see in the bottom picture, was supposed to be 4 hrs one way and I only had 4 hrs in total. I would have made it to the top if I had not stopped for the pictures ...The view was well worth the tough hike. 2 hrs straight up.

But let's start at the beginning. Leaving Puerto Hoppner it was puring rain. However, as we came closer towards Ushuaia, the sky cleared up and we got the most gorgeous light in the sky, opening up a breathtaking view along the Beagle channel and towards Ushuaia (on the right of the upper two pictures)

 Cormorans and sea lions. They love each other's smell. It's horrible when you pass by... ;-)

Here some pictures of  Ushuaia:

 

On thursday we had a rental car and drove around a bit:

A region with very active bievers....(Bieber) who construct quite some dams (Dämme)

 AND, finally, the pictues from my hike yesterday:

To the end of this blog, th emost beautiful morning scene we had in all those days:

Hope you enjoyed the pictues, maybe some of you can give some feedback....


Here are all the pictures of Ushuaia and surrounding: http://sailing.smichah.de/#40.0

I finally also uploaded the rest of the pictures.

Isla de los Estados: http://sailing.smichah.de/#41.0

Trip from Isla de los Estados to Ushuaia:  http://sailing.smichah.de/#42.0