Patagonia Expedition Race

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A Boat Ride

Jacqueline Windh / 22.02.2005

Night of February 17: Today was a fine day!! Perhaps not for paddling, but the sea was lovely ... a rich dark blue somewhere between sapphire and navy. The contrast of the field of whitecaps racing across, spray flying, was stunning.

Morning dawned at PC6 Otway with a fiery red sky over Silva Palma Fiord, in the direction of PC7, 50 km away. Watching the changing colours of the sky, I eavesdropped on the radio as race directors received the weather forecast from the Chilean Navy patroller stationed just offshore: winds of roughly 30 knots (60 km/h) from first from the west, later changing to southwest.

Not paddling weather: they ordered the motorboats. The Navy patroller stood offshore, and a zodiac provided by a local whale research organization (have a look at www.whalesound.com) ferried the teams from shore to the patroller.

Given the chance to hop on the zodiac – to do the full crossing, all the way to PC7 – I jumped! The crossing was fabulous, winds of 25-30 knots sending spray slamming in from the right side, slapping me in the face. With only five of us in the zodiac, we arrived in the relative shelter of the fiord well before the patroller, and hugged its western shore.

The PC was 20 km up the fiord and then a few hundred meters up a river mouth. The zodiac could not land us here at the shallows, but put us on shore about a half-kilometer further south; following vague directions, we walked up the shore, found and crossed the river, then walked another few hundred meters up the river. (I am describing this in detail now, because the location became an issue later).

Meanwhile, the zodiac zipped back to start offloading the teams from the patroller – all teams would wait here until everyone had arrived to the PC, then all would depart together.See All Event Posts