Saturday 22nd - Another Pleasant Sail!
|
Position: 50 48.92 S 074 24.0 W I arose this morning to a clear calm day and was pleased to see that we had anchored in a good spot in the dark last night. It was very still and I wondered whether there was going to be any wind despite what the weather faxes were indicating. The barometer was still very high and not in accordance with the weather picture at all. I decided the only real way of knowing whether we were going to get any wind was to get out into the channels and find out. With no shorelines or dinghy to recover it was a simple matter of hauling in the 30 meters of anchor chain and motoring out of the mirror smooth bay and back into Canal Sarmiento. Once outside there was a light breeze which I set sail to and a short while later we had sailed clear of a sheltering headland and found some decent wind, northwest of course, a headwind, but a very good breeze for all plain sail. It turned out a beautiful day. The sun shone brightly for most of it, the wind also held for most of the day though we had some calm patches which, combined with a contrary current, made progress very slow amongst some islands at a crossroads between Canal Sarmiento and Estrecho Peel. As we crossed Estrecho Peel the water temperature dropped a couple of degrees and I later realized that the current was probably being caused by the outflow of water from the large glaciers at the head of the strait, hence the drop in water temperature. In the clear weather and brilliant sunshine I was privileged to catch sight of the ice cap in the mountains behind Estrecho Peel. It was huge and shone brilliant pure white. I was tempted to make the detour to visit the glaciers but decided I had best continue on my way as diesel fuel is low and stores are dwindling. We eventually made it across Estrecho Peel tacking close by many of the large islets that dot the intersection. Once across the wind started to fade completely but by then we only had a mile to go to our night’s destination so with daylight rapidy fading I started the motor and dropped sail. 20 minutes later we had dropped anchor in perhaps the smallest cove we have visited yet. The water was 9 meters deep and I could only let out 12 meters of chain as there was insufficient room for the boat to swing. Once the anchor was down I made all haste to get the dinghy in the water and a couple of shore lines out before Sylph swung around and smooched up to a rocky cliff face. But inthe dead calm water of the cove Sylph scarcely moved. Once I had shorelines attached then I tightened up on them and let a bit more chain out so the anchor could dig in. Now for a peaceful night - I hope. Still no communications. All is well. Bob Cat: Well I for one cannot see the point of writing a blog entry if it can’t be posted. I have better things to do, the heater is on, hooray, and tuna, hooray hooray …. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. |