Highway to the Danger Zone

Jamie and Steve have found sturdy sea legs, so we're enjoying some hearty and seaworthy meals.

Waking up for the 2000h shift, we find there's finally something on radar - which looks just as it does in the movies. We have a unidentified bogey on our Five O'clock. (We don't actually talk like that, but the passing thought amuses me, because I it would amuse JJ and Vidal.) There's no response on radio, but a we watch a distant red light in the darkness. We soon outpace them and the tenuous excitement is over.

As we're coming upto arrive Stanley, shortly before midnight, we're all on deck deconstructing our goose wing setup in a now unwelcome thirty knot wind. I hadn't put up the part I am taking down, and even given some instruction, I'm clueless and useless in equal measure.

The wind and cold is harsh and I'd greatly prefer to be ducked down in the wind sheltered doghouse, but everyone else is up here and Chris looks entirely unperturbed, so I've got to at least pretend to be hardened sailor.

A Hazy Shade of Winter

Where one day ends and another begins is only academic. We watch, sleep, eat, repeat. The sea is more forgiving today. Jamie and Steve are barely vomiting at all, but are not quite enjoying the ride yet. During the day shift, Steve and I successfully bake a few loaves of bread. Both day and night, our thirst for tea is powerful, if not for warmth or taste, then for passing time.

In the dark, watching the wind power up and come around from north north westerly to north westerly, we seize a rare chance to shine, or, at least, get up. Trimming the main sail and yankee gives us enough added wind power to switch off the engine. Steve isn't a regular sailor either, so we're both quite pleased with ourselves.

As our day shift is ending, the sun is setting. There's no land in any direction. On the horizon, the sky is a layer of a pastel green, washing upwards into grey, then blue, purple, red, orange and yellow. Purple clouds sit above with a few more low lying in the foreground. It's nice.

Know Your Rights

Pelagic and Santa Maria Australis are chalk and cheese. By Wolf's own admission, SMA, with her carpets, upholstery and veneers, is too luxurious for purpose and surroundings, and certainly for the style and taste of her mountain climbing captain. Pelagic is chalk. She's a no frills, no shit, expedition boat, and enjoys a highly regarded twenty five-plus year history. She's mostly sailing with TV documentary crews and extreme adventurers for something around £1,500 per day. This isn't a tourist gig. The job for skipper, Chris, and crew, Jamie, Steve and I, is delivery of Pelagic to Piriapolis, where she'll sit out the winter.

http://www.pelagic.co.uk/fleet_pel.asp

To mix our experience, and lack thereof, I'm paired with fellow Londoner, Steve, for shifts. The shifts make up twenty-four hour watches. We're watching to keep from crashing into boats, rocks, and other unfriendly or sharp objects. We also watch wind speed & direction and adjust sails as necessary. Steve and I take the first nightshift at 2000h. We're relieved at midnight and will return at 0400h. Then we'll take the second of the two six hour day shifts.

At some point during the day, Chris is on deck, pulling or tieing or untieing some coloured rope, so I'm pressed to take a radio call from a Chilean base station. At request, I give details of our position and destination – choosing English over patchy, badly broken Spanish, for the set protocol of these communications – to which the Alcamar signs off with “Thank you, Captain. Out.” This tickles me greatly. Back in the office, I was occasionally called “Captain Pugwash”, after one afternoon, I had called in late, giving the reason that there was insufficient water to return to land.

"Hello Dan, Could you tell Alan that I'll be a couple of hours late this afternoon. There's not enough water. Er... I'll send you a picture"

Keeping the style of the yacht, pissing etiquette is simply to shoot off the back of the boat. I'm told that according to the law of the sea, as a Cape Hornier, I have the right to shoot in any direction I please, whereas others would be restricted to downwind. I tend to favour downwind in any case, but occasionally exercise my right. In noteworthy rough sea, nearby Staten Island, I find pissing off the back, sailing at a brisk 8 knots, to be most colourful. We're being chased by a three, maybe four – certainly higher than my pissing position - metre wave that is keeping pace with us. It almost looks to be offended by my action. Equally colourful, is the green hue of Jamie's face. He and Steve are competing for the glory of he who can throw up the most. Both are muscling through the illness, but are punctual to throw up on an hourly basis, and neither can muster an appetite. I, on the other hand, am having a lovely time and retain an appetite that is comparable to the opening few seconds of an game of Hungry Hungry Hippos. If I were even a half decent sailor, I would be of some use here, but that's yet to become the case. I've no idea what any of these ropes are attached to.

At night, we're restricted to minimal electricity. Only the kitchen and chart table are under dim red light, so the night watch is exactly as it sounds. Pelagic has Autohelm, so with the course set and steady wind, there's nothing needing doing. For our only entertainment, we have a single, also dimly lit monitor, with radar, an electronic chart, and a depth chart that looks like the Predator has fallen asleep with heat vision still on. Absolutely nothing is happening on any of these screens, nor out the window of the “dog house”, where we sit without great comfort. In the last half hour, staying awake and alert is all but impossible for both of us. Every minute, my eyes are heavy and my head dips before jerking back up.

Here I Go Again

Ok. I think I'm now up to date, blog-wise.

I've had to rush most of it, so will fix my hurried grammar and spelling later.

We're planning to sail tomorrow morning, which should take about three days.

I'm glad to be getting out of Williams. It's great for hiking, but it's becoming increasingly hostile & unsustainable, insofar as that there are no bars, pubs, or restaurants open by day. There isn't so much as an Irish pub here. What's the point in exercise if you can't then immediately scupper pints and pints of rich, mouthy ale.

In the Falklands, I'm promised pubs, and, at least, bottled conditioned ale.

Black Dog

When walking around Williams, you tend to get an escort from at least one stray dog. I've moved onto the Pelgaic today, and we've decided to go for a walk. Today our escort is a black dog, who seems to have some history with every other dog in town. In every encounter, he's either starting trouble or is on the receiving end.

A couple of hours into our walk I 'm getting the impression that neither I nor the dog had been party to the discussion of the details of the walk.

After eighteen kilometres, (by GPS reckoning,) of gravel road & roadside walking with stops for mushroom picking, we come to our destination. It's the site of an old Yagan Indian settlement. There's not much there now, just the landscape they fashioned from a seemingly insatiable taste for mussels. I'm told they'd sit around, eat these things all day, throwing the shells over their shoulder - this reminds me of a fight that Stu and I almost got into in a chicken shop. The shells have piled up and have now become circular mounds dotted all around the fields where their fires once were.

On the site, as usual, black dog decides it would be great fun to chase cows around. It turns out cows can get up to an impressive gallop, given the right motivation. This commotion has woken the locals. Two Chilean chaps approach us with their dog. The first guy seems quite friendly, but, most noticably, he's carrying a mace-like length of thick chain. The second older guy had a short back and forth with the Spanish speaking members of my new crew. I gather it roughly translated to "Get aarf my land". And so began an eighteen kilometre stroll back to town.

Man on the Silver Mountain

Today, my crew mate, Jamie, and I went on a walk up to where I'd been yesterday, and beyond. It turns out I'd taken the wrong marked route on my solo hike. The description I had been given early yesterday transpires to be of a more popular trail, which is pretty and forgiving, including nice wooden stairs and wild strawberries. This explains why I had been the only one with complaints about the "walk", not to mention, the only one who came back with an arse covered in mud.

In the "beyond" section of today's trail, the snow is making things a bit spicy. A steep moutain path, with loose ground, covered ice, then covered in soft snow is not making for ideal trekking. We were following footsteps in the snow ten minutes ago, but I don't know where the heck those guys went. No one's come through here recently.

A few more increasingly treacherous slips and slides later, we've had all the spice we want and pull a U-turn.

Slip Slidin' Away

It snowed overnight in the mountains, which is making the final ascent of my trek interesting. My socks and shoes are long since wet from a trailing foot that didn't quite match the forefoot's leap across a river.

On the way down, the steepest sections of the track are falling apart under my feet. Half the time, I'm sliding down in a surfing stance, desperately trying not to land on my arse. I am falling on my arse - quite a lot. I've soon learned that when dry, tree roots are perfect ladders for climbing up and down. When they're wet, they the slippery snake bastards that'll land you on your arse. I'm also gathering that my BMX circuits do not have a one-to-one correlation with steep hiking.

Returning through a much more straight forward route than the wet directionless fields and forests I came through, I'm guessing I could have saved an hour or two that I'd spent lost, aimlessly trying to find the start of the marked trek. Nevermind though, off-piste trekking feel much more heroic.