Valdivia to the Gateway of Patagonia – Isle de Chiloé

Patagonia, an area of geography shared by Chile and Argentina.  In Chile, Patagonia is the southern portion of the Andes Mountains reaching southwest towards the Pacific Ocean down to Tierra del Fuego.  This is the coastline of Chile that beckons sailors with unspoiled cruising grounds, challenges utilizing all their knowledge and skill, maximizing the functions of their boats to navigate through treacherous winds and waves, anchorages that can require two or more anchors as well as two to four lines extended to shore secured to trees to combat sudden and unpredictable wind gusts of 70 to 100 mph called “williwaws”.   A quote from the Argentine pilot offers the following definition: “Their action is stronger in the coves and the waters lying under steep mountainsides.  Gusts descend from the valleys in a roar of shaken trees and whistling whirlwind on rocks.  Small twisters of foam and water appear on the sea, rushing at incredible speed on the surface accompanied by curtains of rain or hail that hide the coast to the eye.  The average duration of this phenomenon is 8 to 10 seconds, but they sometimes reach the minute”.   A minuscule 8 to 10 seconds can throw a boat against the rocks causing major damage or worse, sink you into waters of 50 degrees or less.  Will the acclaimed beauty be worth the risk?

We headed down the Rio Valdivia into open water, destination: Isla de Chiloé.  For us the beginning of the majestic and mystical landscape called Patagonia.  It was going to be one of our last passages in open water approximately 210 miles.  This particular coastline is called, “40 barking dogs” by the locals.  There are highly confused seas reacting from winds, the Humboldt current,  and the steep rocky coastline which bounces the waves back at you  (What would 40 barking dogs sound like?)  There are no safe anchorages to duck into along this coast.  Once underway, you are committed.  

  

We left during a light rain and fog, seas up to 8 feet but no wind.  We raised the mainsail for steadying, a baton soon popped loose so we took in a reef.   Around 2 a.m. winds reached 22 knots.  This actually made a smoother ride but did not last.  Throughout the night and into the next day our stomachs felt like they were being churned by a hand mixer, multi-directional waves continuing at 9 to12 feet.  Sleeping and eating on this particular passage was minimal.  Once we entered Canal Chacao we hit even more excitement!  This narrow channel leads from the open ocean over a shoaled entrance into Golfo de Ancud, the body of water between mainland Chile and Isle de Chiloé.  We witnessed one of the fastest tidal streams we’d ever seen as we surfed along at 11 knots plus through this channel. 

took a picture prematurely, we did hit 13!

   

Passed the entrance and shoaling, there were multiple eddies of small fish and birds, sea lions jumped or popped their heads up to peek at the intruders, a glorious ride after the previous 24 hours.  We had now entered Golfo de Ancud, heading for a calm anchorage.   Current ended and we were back to 5.4 knots speed over ground and 30 miles to go.

Arriving a bit tossed, but safe and sound, we anchored at Isla Mechuque, Limbo being the only boat besides the locals.  Calm water and enchanting scenery, it was like looking at a jigsaw puzzle.

The following day was cold, overcast, and rainy.  Not much to do except turn on the generator, both heaters and make a pan of brownies to eat while lying in bed watching movies, a superb day.   The bad weather did bring in several more boats.  At one time I looked out and there were 7 more in the anchorage. 

Black neck swans were gracing the shoreline the following morning, their beautiful necks arching and dipping deeply on the hunt, then again raising their slender long necks into the air without shedding a drop or making a ripple on the surface around them.  I was mesmerized by their movements.  

black neck swans

   

Sun shining, day moving on, we hopped in the dink for a cruise around the island.  Captain Don came a little too close to a duck and her chicks; she retaliated with a full chase and squawk. 

It's not only me that squawks at Captain Don!

  

Continuing on we beached the dinghy to view a beautiful seaside cemetery.  

a gorgeous seascape view

We walked through the village; saw the local museum and the boat yard.  Quite interesting the way fishing boats are built on the beach out of wood bent by steam to form the hull.  There is not too much to see here but it is a safe and colorful harbor.

anchor made of wood that had a stone on middle

cooking method 

quaint village with brick streets and brightly colored
shingled houses

new construction

steaming wood inside steel pipe on open fire

We left to head to Marina Quinched which is close to Castro on Isle de Chiloé about 25 miles away.  Sunny day, calm waters, the dolphins had a great time with the bow wake.  Always great to see, makes me think they bring us good luck. 

Marina Quinched is a delightful place in between two towns, Chonchi and Castro.  The bus runs 3 times per week at 8:30 a.m. to Castro and 2:00 p.m. to Chonchi.  You have to walk a quarter mile to the bus stop and if you miss it then it’s a 3 mile walk to the highway.  Fortunately, William Bannister, the owner of the marina goes to town daily or every other day and is only too happy to give a lift.  Castro is the 2^nd largest city on Isla Chiloé with good provisioning available.   A short walk up the road from the marina slightly pass the bus stop, a small faded sign advertising huevos, lechuga, and cilantro hangs askew on the fence post.  We were able to buy yard eggs and right from the garden, potatoes, lettuce, cilantro, parsley, and onions.  Across from the marina is a very small calleta, (island) that can only be reached by dinghy or wait until the tide goes down and then you can walk to a charming blue cottage that sells fresh caught escaped salmon, (escaped from one of the multiple salmon farms)  Delicious.  We had a barbeque with other boaters one evening and Captain Don made his famous “Asian glazed salmon”.  There were people from Canada, Holland, Germany, Sweden, France, Denmark, and Chile, quite an international dinner. 

Denmark, Holland, Canada

Sweden, Chile, Holland, France, & Captain Don

We spent Valentine’s Day in the dinghy cruising the coastline and viewing the landscape.  It is seductive with 100 foot cliffs, curvatures, and outcropping of boulders, the rolling green hills with grazing cattle and sheep, stands of pines and hardwoods stunning with their vibrancy of colors.  I’m in awe.  It all seems to be so distant, like a giant billboard, you keep expecting some movement or change.  The view is straight from a magazine, brightly colored, glossy and surreal.  

Marina Quinched

PERU Part III - THE COAST OF PARACAS TO NASCA AND HUACACHINA, A DESERT OASIS

 Paracas lies south of Lima, with the Paracas Yacht Club situated at GPS 14.02.54 S and 75.45.12 W.  This yacht club is part of the Yacht Club La Punta where Limbo has been since July 23.  The waters here are quite shallow so coming close to shore with our 6 foot draft would not be possible.  We arrived by bus and booked a two part tour to the Paracas National Reserve.  The first part was a boat tour to Isla Ballestas, a group of islands off the coast of Paracas.  They are nesting grounds to thousands and thousands of birds, the Humboldt Penguin, brown booby, Guanay cormorants, pelicans, and terns.  Swimming the waters and lounging on the rocks were sea lions from huge bulls to babies.  The occasional dolphin also surfaced to be counted among the rest of the crowd.  The islands are also called the “Guano Islands” because they harvest the guano here every 7 years using picks and shovels.  (Very nasty job I’d say) The islands start stinking on approach but the splendor of so many birds in flight the closer you get makes the slightly repulsive odor more tolerable.  We have never seen so many birds in one place.

  

Humbolt Penquin 

The second part of the tour was in the desert, supposedly the “driest place on earth desert”.  Once a seabed, we found turritelas shells, fossils of a marine snail from 36 million years ago.  The main traveled road is made of salt.  Although a desert, it was cold and windy.  The name “Paracas” means “raining sand” in Quechua, an Indian dialect throughout the area.  Silica and iron ore littered the dry crusted earth.  The reserve is on a peninsula surrounded by lovely green jeweled ocean.  It is spectacular to see the waves crashing against variegated colored sand cliff.  I stood pondering the vastness of the desert surrounded by an endless ocean horizon only too soon to realize “water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink.

salt and sand road

Part of the reserve is the famous “El Candelabro” also called the Paracas Trident.  It’s a giant candelabra carved into the sea cliffs facing the Pacific Ocean.  Some speculate it’s of alien origin, some say it’s part of the Nasca Lines, some say it was used for navigation.  To us, it looks more like the cactus plants indigenous to the area, than candelabra.  

candelabra

We ended our tour with a delightful lunch in Legunillas, a small fishing village located in the reserve.  They were there before the park was established in 1975 so they have been allowed to stay and continue to make their living fishing the rich protected waters.

net mending

fishing village

one of my favorite birds

What a diversity of sites we had in the two tours, land and sea, ancient and living.  The day not quite over, we boarded a bus to Ica and then a taxi to HUACACHINA, a desert oasis. 

As I had seen on TV a pond in the middle of the desert!

We checked in at the Carola Hotel and on the way to our room a bit after dark, we were greeted by a Saint Bernard and a rabbit.  What an odd combination of friends that learned how to share the small patch of grass in the otherworld of sand.  Up early, breakfast at Desert Nights which was one of the very few places in our travels since leaving Panama that served brewed coffee instead of instant.  A super treat.  We walked across a dirt road to another hostel called Bananas.  There we booked a 10 a.m. dune buggy and sand board trip.  This area is a popular spot for the young 20ish crowd from Europe and Canada.  Most of the kids we talked to had anywhere from 3 to 6 months of holiday time.  We were surprised at the young girls traveling by themselves.  We had met one in Paracas, and then another on the bus to Ica.  This has been the same all through Peru.  We thought it odd and dangerous.  

We buckled in the dune buggy and away we were with 4 other passengers.  One was a travel agent from Cusco so we think we were given an extra dose of “extreme” dune riding.  We skirted the tops of dunes, we flew over a couple, we fishtailed around and down, riding sideways on one of the dunes I thought we may have been on only 2 wheels.  It was fast and dirty, my first experience in a dune buggy.  I had purple palms from hanging on and a bruised body from slamming into the metal rails.  When I thought I could hang on no more we stopped to sand board.  This is a 3 ft board rounded on both ends with Velcro strapping for your shoes.  I was not going to stand having just recovered from an ankle injury.  The driver handed out pieces of wax to rub the bottom of the boards to go faster.  I was first.  Hesitant wasn’t really what I was feeling as I was teetering the top of a dune, belly down on board, hands wrapped in straps, elbows in, legs out but not touching, head up.  I had more of a, “what the hell am I doing” ticker tape running through my head.  The chattering monkeys competing between expressing exhilarated anticipation of fun or the probability of me falling off the board and rolling through the sand scrubbing my skin for 300 or 400 feet.  And then came a slight push and I was laughing and screaming down the sand dune.  What a ride.  Captain Don didn’t scream but he certainly had a huge grin coming down.  We had to walk a bit to the next one.  It is not easy to walk in this powdery soft sand.  We became winded and tired quickly.  The others in the group tried standing to go down, making it a little ways and then falling.  It is harder than it looks and one fellow said he had a lot of experience snowboarding but this was much harder.  We did learn a lesson; you must cover your camera in plastic while in the sand!

dune buggy w/driver

ok, focus, what is he saying, arms, legs, yes - I think I'm ready

it was a long way down

King of the mountain

The hotel was kind enough to let us shower after check out.  Back on a bus and onto NASCA.  This was one of Captain Don’s big “to dos”.  We were hustled right from the bus to a cab and onto a hotel that had a tour operator standing by.  A packaged deal awaited us complete with hotel, transportation, plane and English speaking guide.  We were on a plane with 2 Korean boys within a couple of hours of our arrival.  There are limited flight times and afternoons are the best. (I’m pretty sure they tell the morning flights that mornings are the best!) The plane was a tiny 4 passenger with single prop.  We were given headphones to hear our guide and mask the engine noise.  An explanation of the route we’d be taking passing over each of the major lines twice, giving both sides of the plane opportunity to take pictures.

The lines were made by scrapping trenches into the ground.  There are over 13,000 lines, depicting 18 birds, a dog, a spaceman, trees, hands, a lizard, spider, killer whale, shark, and our favorite, the monkey.  Research claims the lines were dug over a period of 800 years starting in 370 B.C.  The dry desert climate has kept them preserved along with the high oxide content of the ground and damp night time winds that sweep away the daily sand deposits.  Theory runs from the idea the figures were messages to the gods, or ritual roads as part of the Nasca peoples worship, or even exact astronomic charts.  Maria Reiche who studied the lines from 1946 until 1998 thought the lines a calendar with alignment of stars to tell when to plant, harvest, summer and winter solstice.  Not all of this has been proven which still leads into the mystery of the Nasca.  Why were they dug?  Are the symbols representatives of gods or tributes to gods?  Is this a religious ceremonial area?  Is it a navigational aid for aliens?  My my, the quandary of it all.  It depends on what you believe in I suppose or how vivid your imagination is.  I watch a lot of science fiction, so I have my own story.  Whatever your belief, the reality of them brings to life many, many questions?  Thousands of lines, miles of carved sand, desert in every direction.  Why there?  How did they survive while there?

Not too many good pictures of the lines because the zoom and focus was full of sand from our last adventure.  We’ll have to have it cleaned somewhere.

inside plane

look very close, this is the monkey

another opportunity to spot the monkey

amazing landscape

fly over of roadside observation tower


Back at the hotel and in our room, we were not comfortable.  Recalling the hustle of earlier, the condition of the room, we left and booked a  10 p.m. bus to Arequipa.  We would travel all night in a sleeper bus and arrive at 8 a.m.

Continued Part IV Peru- Out of the sand and into the Andes