4/3/08 Noon

We left Ushuaia at 11:15.  It was a bumpy night as we had two large boats rafted up outside of us and there was wind and swell.  We woke Stuart on Pelagic Australis, the most out side boat, and he moved off as did the other charter boat allowing us to escape.

Last night I downloaded the Chile Route to the Raymarine system and this morning when I switched on the Cockpit Radar Display which also displays the electronic charts, it was completely dead.  This is a new twist and we haven’t yet examined all the possible  causes.  In the meantime I am able to select waypoints from the chart table so we’re not completely stuffed, although it will be a pity if we’re not able to sort the Radar before Valdivia.  There are over 200 waypoints in the Chile Route which seems to be more than the Raymarine system can handle; while it has put an “X” at each waypoint position, it hasn’t connected them up as a route.  So each day I will have to connect the “Xs” to make a route du jour, which is tedious but totally doable.

15:00

So we stripped down the Radar Display and found traces on salt water corrosion on the bottom circuit board which connects to the on/ off switch.  Steve discovered that a tiny bit of corrosion had made a break in the printed circuit connection to the power switch.  He managed to do bit of micro soldering and after a couple of hours of grief everything was back up and running.  When we get to Valdivia we will replace the circuit board.  We arrived back in Puerto Williams at 15:00 and promptly set our watches back an hour to GMT -3.  The season is nearly over and the place is nearly deserted, hardly any yachts here.  Apparently it’s called Muerto Williams off season.

A few photos today:  The Beagle Channel this morning.  The sum total of our trash compacted garbage-- 5 bags for the three weeks we were away and the printed circuit board with the soldered wire jumper on the right hand side.