Buenas tardes! Hawk lies moored to a buoy in the horseshoe-shaped harbor in front of Ushuaia (pronounced oo-shwie-a). This colorful Argentinean town lies 30 miles to the east of Puerto Williams, on the north shore of the Beagle Channel, on the southern side of the large island called Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego. Ferdinand Magellan named the island almost 400 years ago, in 1520, when he saw hundreds of bonfires along its northern shore shortly after his arrival in the Straits of Magellan. Those bonfires, made by the Selk'nam people, were likely signaling the arrival of strange vessels in tribal waters. The Yámana, another tribe on the south of the island no doubt saw and understood those messages which likely lessened the shock somewhat when European ships reached them a few decades later. They gave this harbor its name, a name which means "protected from the west." The town's many buildings, most painted in bright primary colors, sprawl along the foreshore beneath 4,500-foot craggy peaks sporting a few dwindling areas of glacier. As winter comes on, these peaks have begun to wear a mantle of white snow.

The season is changing here in the Beagle Channel. We're well into fall, and the days have shortened to twelve hours from the fifteen hours of daylight we had when we reached this latitude a bit over a month ago. We no longer have the occasional day of temperatures into the 70s, and we're starting to call days with temperatures in the mid-50s warm. The last of the cruising boats left in a herd a few days ago, some bound northward for a voyage up the channels and winter in Puerto Montt, the rest headed for the Atlantic and a return to the US or Europe. As far as we know, we're the only crew planning to winter aboard a cruising boat in the Beagle this year, though a large flotilla of charter boats and a single private yacht and her crew remain in Ushuaia and Puerto Williams.

But I have to admit that we will not be spending the whole winter on Hawk. In fact, we spent most of last week babysitting the private yacht, an Oyster 72 for her crew, Clive and Laila, good friends of ours that we met on our first circumnavigation. While watching over the boat, we got to enjoy all the luxuries: hot showers, push button central heating, a washing machine, microwave, movies, ice cream from the freezer, all the water we could want... We will be pressed back into service when they take a longer vacation for six weeks in May and June.

We first met Clive and Laila at Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean when they were aboard Isa Lei, their 30-year old Van de Stadt Pioneer 30, one of the first European fiberglass production boats. We actually heard about them while on passage to Christmas Island when one of the Australian Coastwatch planes that checked our position daily told us that there was a "little boat" about a day ahead of us and gave us her name. Clive is Australian born and Brit educated; Laila is Danish born and has lived abroad since her early twenties. We are all of similar ages, and Laila and I share a love of horses and big dogs and look alike enough to be sisters. Clive and Evans share an ironic sense of humor and are able to commiserate about the "loneliness of command." Over the course of shared landfalls from one end of the Indian Ocean to the other, we began to build what has proven to be a deep and enduring friendship. When we trace back the roots of our high latitude sailing to the seed that germinated into Hawk and this voyage, Clive and Laila stand center stage.

Fourteen years ago, all four of us were on Rodrigues Island after the boisterous run across the Southern Indian Ocean from Australia. We were all worrying about our next big challenge -passing under South Africa's "Great Cape." On Rodrigues Island, we met Ellard and his five crewmembers aboard Nicola, a 43-foot Roberts-designed steel cutter that Ellard had built himself with dreams of rounding the Horn. But after 34 days in Southern Ocean gales and storms between Cape Town and Rodrigues, he had completely abandoned any thoughts of Patagonia. Ellard was amused by our fears over rounding the Cape of Good Hope. "Let me show you a real Great Cape," he said, giving Evans and Clive his copy of the South American Pilot for Cape Horn and the Chilean channels. This began a running joke about the four of us sailing around the Horn after we put this "little cape" behind us.

Over the following years, we went back ashore and built Hawk, and Clive and Laila built successful careers as charter skipper and first mate first on a 50-foot Moorings boat, then on a 62-foot charter boat. At the same time, they sold Isa Lei and started refitting a Gulfstar 43 they had named Amole. We saw each other as often as we could - they visited us twice in the States, and we sailed with them once in the Caribbean. By the time we returned to the Caribbean aboard Hawk in the fall of 1999 and were able to spend some time with Clive and Laila between their charters, our joke about Cape Horn and the Chilean channels had turned to commitment. But talking about it was too scary. Instead, the jokes continued with Evans proposing a race to Cape Horn, winner to buy the beers. Though it was unspoken, we all hoped that we might meet in the Beagle Channel and cruise in company on our own boats.

That was not to be. We came close, but we missed each other by a few months. Clive and Laila were on their way down the Atlantic to meet us in the Beagle in the summer of 2002/2003 when Clive's father became ill. Clive and Laila spent the next three months dealing with him and his affairs. We could not wait, as we were leaving the Beagle bound for Australia on a two-month Southern Ocean passage which had to be done in the summertime. They arrived in the Beagle in April of 2003, three months after we had departed. Just as we had, they sailed north up the channels, spent a few months in Puerto Montt, and then sailed back south. With the offer of a new charter position running a 58-foot catamaran, they returned up the Atlantic to the Caribbean.

In the intervening years, we have completed our second circumnavigation, and they have moved from the charter trade to running the Oyster for a private owner. So it was luck - not planning - that had us arriving in Puerto Montt at the north of the channels within a week of one another back in October. We will be able to spend a good deal of time with them this winter, between trips with their owner and guests. Knowing Clive and Laila would be here made the idea of wintering in the Beagle irresistible.

As cruisers, we spend far too much time saying goodbye. We feel very fortunate that we've been blessed with such a vital and intimate friendship, and that we'll be able to enjoy it to the full this winter.

May you find time for good friends,

Beth and Evans

s/v Hawk

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