The anchor is down and I have had the best night of rest I have had for over 30 days; a night of sleep that followed my normal biorhythms not my watch schedule. To wake with the sun rising, truly rested, is something that most people pay little attention to but for me, right now, it is more significant than the fact that we have achieved our goal. The fact that we have obtained our goal will sink in today, I am sure, but for now I am sitting here in a very strange state of stability; in a beautiful, totally protected anchorage called Puerto Ingles.

Puerto Ingles is a natural harbor on the northwest side of the island of Chiloé, right behind the Coronado lighthouse (41 47.68S 75 54.22W). It is completely foreign to me to have no sound, no movement, and no wind. It has been so long since I have been in these conditions that it is no longer the norm and it is quite strange. I am so use to living in an environment that is in constant motion. Every move, every object set down, even going to the bathroom has to be pre-planned and thought through. Before you open a cabinet you have to think about what is behind it and how everything is going to move. When you open the fridge while healed to port, you have to be ready to catch whatever has shifted. To physically move around the boat requires you to plan each step and know ahead of time what you are going to hold on to. This has been our reality, the norm, for the past month. To be able to sit in the cockpit this morning with my computer in my lap and a cup of my long awaited fresh brewed coffee sitting next to me, on a level surface no less, is something that most people take for granted; but for me it is an almost forgotten experience....I could get use to this!!!

The crazy idea of making this voyage came about after talking to a very nice German couple, Reinhart and Marlene, in Grenada over two years ago. We were anchored next to their sailboat, Adio, in Prickly Bay. I had taken a shine to their very stout aluminum boat that happened to have a "Wind Pilot" wind vane. A wind vane is a piece of equipment mounted to the stern that will steer the boat, same as our electric/ hydraulic auto pilot. The key difference is that it requires no electricity and needs only the wind to steer the boat. Most long distance/hard core cruisers have some type of wind vane. Reina and I decided to dinghy over and find out how they liked their Wind Pilot. After introductions, and in typical fashion for the cruising community, they invited us on board.

It quickly became evident that this couple had a lot of miles under their keel. In the previous twelve years they had cruised all over the world, circumnavigating every ocean and many seas. Not to mention that they were in their late 70's and still going strong!!!

Our first questions were regarding the wind vane. During their cruising they used their autopilot 99% of the time. In their opinion they felt it was wiser to invest in redundant parts for the autopilot I already had. This is ultimately what we did.

Our wind vane questions quickly led to their travels. We were curious to know if one place stood apart from all the others. If they were to return anywhere where would it be? They both answered simultaneously, without hesitation, Patagonia. They had even cruised Patagonia twice, they loved it that much. According to them, Alaska (where they had also cruised extensively) was a distant second. As soon as we got back to the boat Reina and I looked at each other and said, "Where in the hell is Patagonia?"

And that, my friends, is how it all started.....

We did our research and concluded two things: Patagonia did in fact look pretty amazing AND it was really freaking far away. Distance aside, I was really excited about a change from what I knew to be cruising. Do not get me wrong, the crystal clear waters and palm strewn islands are beautiful; but, not to be constantly sweating and to be able to enjoy cooler temperatures and changing seasons, I was all in. As for Reina, I am not sure why she said "okay, let's do it". All I can say is that has pretty much been her attitude about this whole adventure, from its inception when we were first dating and I talked about living on a boat. She has always just said "why not" and dealt with the holy shit what was I thinking along the way. So, that was that, we were going to Patagonia.



Remember this picture? We took it just over a year ago when we crossed the equator on the way to Ecuador, our jumping off point for Chile.

It took a lot of planning, effort, and energy, not to mention money, to get the boat and us ready to make our voyage. Did I mention it is a 4000 mile offshore (very, very offshore) passage? Let's see, that is comparable to traveling from West Palm Beach to New York City 4 times at a joggers pace! Prior to our departure for Chile, our longest passage by distance was from La Libertad, Ecuador to the Galapagos, 640 nautical miles. On that trip we averaged 6.2 knots and did it in just over 4 days. At the time of our conversation in Grenada our longest passage had been to Grenada from Puerto Rico, 380 nm. We did that trip with a third crew member, Tom. The longest the two of us had been at sea together was our 5 day passage from Las Perlas to Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador. Going to southern Chile was a BIG decision for us.

After a year in Ecuador and 5 months in the boat yard the work was done. The money and time had been invested. The time to depart, Chile's austral summer was upon us. And then the reality of what we are about to do sinks in. The funny thing is, with all the work we had been doing to get ready; neither of us had really put our head around the reality of what we were setting out to do. We had shared with others about the trip and had described to people the destination from what we had learned from others who had gone before us. It was like telling a good story you had heard, not something you ever thought you would be doing. Now it was our turn and both of us were a little nervous. Well, that is not completely accurate, a little nervous does not really describe how both of were dealing with what was at hand. In my mind I had prepared for this challenge by doing everything possible to responsibly and reasonably prepare the boat. I never really prepared myself though. I never really put my head around it; but, as I have addressed other challenges in my life, you do what you can do and you then take a leap of faith and put yourself out there and commit. Reina on the other hand was dealing with it a little differently (remember that "okay let's do it attitude"). It almost seemed like Reina was thinking that someone else was making this voyage. Never once had she expressed any concern, other than her typical over thinking all possible problems that could occur. She never physically showed or expressed any concern or fear about the passage until it was time to go. When it came time to depart the anxiety she was feeling started to affect her physically.

To make things even worse; we were following the progress of our friends, Cat and Rich, on the sailboat Anna who had departed the Galapagos for Chile the month before we were to depart. They were fighting big seas and winds from the south. The conditions were making it difficult for them to stay on the heading needed to make it to Easter Island. After 10 days Rich, the captain, made a difficult decision to turn the boat west and head to the Marquesas. In an email he sent to us he expressed his frustration and tried to share with Reina and I his logic in diverting. In his opinion everything is predicated on the position of the South Pacific High (SPH). In the case of Anna, the SPH was father west then would be ideal for this passage. The SPH was causing the winds to blow from the south not southeast therefore causing Anna to sail more west than desirable.

Reina and I were aware of the SPH and had done our homework on the subject. We had studied the pilot charts and World Cruising Routes by Jimmie Cornel and had picked the austral summer months of December/ January to do the voyage. These months are supposed to put the SPH in the most favorable position to avoid low pressure systems and to allow the westerly's to set up the farthest north. Reina and I thought the damn thing was essentially stationary; the picture in the pilot charts shows its historical position for those months and we just assumed it was always there. That was a bad assumption, one that we did not address in our preparing for the trip.

It never dawned on me that there was some chance that we might not be able to make it. I was prepared for so much, just not that. Reina and I started to talk about our Plan B. I was also feeling uncomfortable with the fact that at the last minute Reina was not 100% on board for the run to Chile. I needed her to be willing to suck up the hard stuff if we were going to make this voyage work. I did not want to do this alone and did not want to hear any crap when things got tough. Giving Reina the choice to make a go - no go decision and knowing that I would support her decision without question made her feel some relief and gave her control of the situation. We all know she likes to control things!! The problem is that the options were rather limited and none of them were ones we liked. Keep in mind that we were processing all of this in the Galapagos.

So let's see, our "Plan B" choices are Pitcairn Islands, Marquesas, Baja of Mexico, Hawaii and Panama. Well neither of us wanted to go back to Panama and if we did it would most likely be 1000 nm motor back through the ITCZ (doldrums). Mexico was getting us closer to the US and that just made us feel like we were moving backwards. We weren't ready to go west, feeling there was so much more of South America that we wanted to see (not to mention we were not prepared with the necessary paperwork to allow us a long-term stay). Hawaii was further away and more difficult to get to than Chile. Being in this predicament was not a good feeling. We are so used to cruising in the Atlantic where there are many options and they usually are under 600 nm away. Not in the Pacific. The choices are few and the distances are in the thousands of miles.

We finally decided that if we ran into the same problem that Anna did we would choose to take a left and hope we end up in Peru. We were not ready to give up on Chile. With patience we could always get to Chile along the coast if we had to. Peru is a beautiful country to see but in our opinion it is not a good destination to go by boat. Private vessels are treated the same as commercial vessels; the result being excessive costs and regulations, inconsistent handling, and the expectation of a little graft to get the whole thing handled smoothly. In light of all that, we still chose Peru as our back up. We were not sure if the winds would allow us to make it there but we needed some sort of back up and that was it.

Because the choices were all equally unappealing, Reina was on board to start heading to Chile and to "see how it goes". I am glad she made that choice, not that I would have ever held it over her head....not me!!! I think if we were leaving from costal Ecuador she would not have made the same choice. That night we watched a movie called Glory Days. The movie was about the first black class A college basketball team from a school in west Texas in the 60's. In the movie the team was about to quit because of all the racist problems they faced. The coach told them "if you quit now you will quit every day of the rest of your life". We both decided that that should be the theme for this trip. I proceeded to make a sign and put it right by the steps to the cockpit where you had to see it every time you went up top.



Reina and I were completely frustrated with the fact that we found very little information about the passage we were about to make. With all the books we read and all the research on the computer we did, we found very few boats that made the trip to Chile. What we did find was mostly discussion about preparing the boat and about their arrival, nothing about the voyage itself.....nothing. Well now I understand why. As I sit here preparing to tell you about the voyage it is just not that compelling.

We spent the first week just getting our bodies adjusted to our new environment. Reina, in typical fashion, made a contribution to her newly purchased little red bucket. It is just what she does, it has nothing to do with the conditions it is just the stress she feels. But she "did not quit" she stood her watch. She knew that there was no reason for her to have gotten sick. I assured her that she needed to give it some time and things would improve. I told her that she was just detoxing from all the alcohol (we don't drink our nightly cocktails while underway). She felt sick the first five days. She ate very little and was in the horizontal position most of the time with her little red bucket close by but she still kept every watch. No cooking, no dishes. Thank god she was prepared for this. Reina has the passage food thing down. She had pre-prepared and froze 21 fresh made meals in zip lock bags ready for a simple reheat and serve. That made my job very easy. On a side note: we both noticed that our sense of taste changed while on this passage. I don't understand it but it is true. I live for my morning coffee. On this trip it was not appealing, having a beer when your watch was over, not appealing, dark chocolate, not appealing. There were many examples like that....strange.

Physically it is very tiring. In my opinion it is because you are using different muscles to maintain your balance in your new world of constant motion. You feel exhausted when you really have not done much. I know that when I needed to go out to do a sail change I came back to the cockpit very thirsty and tired feeling I had expelled a lot of energy. The reality is I think your body is actually working very hard.

The next problem was sleep deprivation. We have learned from our previous experiences and from some advice from others to come up with a watch schedule that works for us. The most difficult part is getting through the night. For us, a five hour shift for each of us through the night has worked the best. I was on from 9 pm to 2am then Ray from 2am to 7am. (During the day we do a 2 on 2 off watch schedule.) We have also learned to run lights in the cockpit and down below. We use to be obsessed with running red lights only, in order to keep our night vision. That would still be our practice in an area where there might be fishing boats or nets that you have to watch out for but that was not our situation. If you light up the place like day time, it is easier to stay awake. It works. We also had a computer set up to take up to our bubble (cockpit) and we would watch movies and TV series while on watch. Reina had a 30 day Desperate Housewives TV marathon; I preferred all the classic Clint Eastwood westerns & old military movies I am never allowed to watch.

While sailing, the person on watch is responsible to make sure that "Mot" our autopilot is properly steering the boat. "Mot" got its name from my best friend Tom. MOT is the opposite of TOM; it is working all the time, TOM, on other passages, was always sleeping!! When the sails are set up right and the boat is "balanced" the autopilot does not have to work very hard to maintain its heading. We usually tell "Mot" to maintain an angle to the wind that is ideal for the current sail set up. That way if you get a wind change and are not paying attention, nothing will break. You will just not be going where you want to go. At that point you can process what sail changes need to be made to correct your course. If a change needs to be made that requires going on deck then the person off watch needs to be woken up. No one ever goes on deck without the other person being in the cockpit. Other than keeping an eye on Mot we check the radar every hour (20 minutes in Reina's case) to see if any boats or rain is ahead of us and logging us into the log book. That is pretty much the extent of responsibilities of the night watch.

After the first week things were getting better for both of us. I was not feeling 100% during that first week and was very conservative on what I ate. Reina was finally able to sit up in the cockpit and could eat a normal meal. She only got sick that one time although the bucket was always nearby. For the rest of the trip our mental health was directly related to maintaining our routine. Routine is good. During the day we stayed true to our watch schedule and the off watch person could chose to stay in the cockpit and nap or nap in the berth. We slept a lot during the first week. Once acclimated, we tended to each have a morning and afternoon nap. Having a 5 hour off watch schedule at night made it better but there were many nights when the conditions were not conducive for sleep at all. Having some experience on other boats, doing deliveries along the east coast of US, I can say that the aft birth on Karma is really comfortable but in bad conditions it is still difficult to sleep. There are times when you try to wedge yourself into a corner to try to keep from moving but sometimes it is just impossible. You wedge your feet into a spot to try to keep from sliding around and that works but it still makes sleeping difficult. So on those rough nights you spend the rest of the next day trying to catch up on your sleep.

On this trip there were many days when the conditions were very mild and made for a comfortable passage. By the end of the second week both of us were totally acclimated to our environment. We would have our big meal together for lunch, we read, played cribbage, chess, backgammon, and unfortunately "talked".....Reina loves to talk!!!!!

Like I said before there is not a lot to talk about when it comes to the "voyage". We had our share of challenges. We set up every conceivable sail arrangement possible. We were even able to fly our big gennaker with the main sail for a time. We got very excited when we saw a vessel show up on our AIS system. That is a system that all commercial vessels are required to have and it shows up on our chart plotter as a little boat, even though we cannot see them. A description of the vessel and its heading and speed also are indicated. This particular vessel was doing 12 knots and was described as a catamaran. We were so excited to see something that we even tried to call them just to talk. They did not answer our call.

In the Galapagos we saw so much sea life it was surprising for us that on this trip we saw absolutely no life what so ever (aside from dead flying fish on the deck the first week).The exception was an occasional bird and phosphorescence in the water at night, that was it. No boats, No dolphins, no seals, no turtles, no whales, nothing. We did get excited in the 4th week of the trip to see a very large albatross. They are true giants.

Much to my Czech friend Petr's disappointment, I did not feel like fishing for most of the trip. After we made the turn west and were going downwind I decided to try fishing. The first day I had no action. The second day I had just finished putting the line out and was putting the poll in the holder when something hit the line. I then took the pole back into my hand and there was nothing on the line. I was about to put it back in its holder when it hit again. It hit hard!!! I had to sit on the back deck and it was taking line very fast even with the drag set on high. Reina got out my waste belt thing to help me hold the pole. It was something big and I worked it for over 30 minutes. I was making very little progress getting it to the boat and kept increasing the drag so that I would not run out of line. Well I never saw it jump and have no idea what I had, all I know is that it decided to dive and the line finally gave out. It was the "one that got away". I needed a nap after that!!!

The next day I got the pole out again with another rig (not my favorite) and proceeded to catch a bird. I don't think that Pacific birds are as smart as Atlantic birds. I do not ever remember having a sea bird run into my line and getting tangled in it. Not the lure just the line. I did not want to cut the line because I felt it would not save the bird if I did, so I started to bring it to the boat. Reina was getting a towel to cover the bird while I untangled it. As it worked out as soon as I got the bird on board the boat he was able to free himself from the line on his own. He decided to rest on the deck for 5 minutes then was able to resume his bird duties with no problem. Reina informed me that I was not to fish any more; we did not need any bad Karma. I said that Petr would not be happy with me!!!

Another observation that I have never heard anyone talk about is the fact that after being on one point of sail for days and having to then change direction sets your world into a different motion. You were just getting use to the previous conditions. You knew how to set a glass down or a bowl without spilling it. Now everything has changed. What I did not realize is that with the new motion comes that uncomfortable feeling again. I would get a little headache and would not feel like eating like I had been, and I got physically sore again...weird.

We did deal with many different conditions. During our east run we experienced the biggest swell I have ever seen. From the bottom of the swell you would see the next one coming and it was way up over the top of the bimini, not the deck, but the roof of our cockpit. They were separated by an average of over 10 seconds which means that normally Karma would just gently move up and over them without even causing a concern. However, at the time we were also were experiencing winds over 25 knots which is just uncomfortable and violent. You have to respect the power of the wind. As I have said before the power of the wind grows exponentially as the speed increases. All you can do is set the boat up for the conditions, make sure you have addressed any chafe issues the best you can then you just try to get comfortable and trust your boat. I do believe that Karma can withstand much more abuse that we can.

In addition to having a professional weather router, helping us with our route and weather we were also able to pull weather information on our own. Through the single side band radio we could download what is called a GRIB file which compiles wind and wave conditions for a large area with a lot of detail. It also shows you where the borders are for both high and low pressure systems. We could then overlay the GRIB file with our chart plotter to see our actual position in the big picture of the weather all around us. I can say that our "karma" was good for this trip.

In the "Roaring Forties" we got as far south as 43 degrees south. You can get some really nasty stuff in this area; hence the name "Roaring". On the GRIB's I could see that we were going west in a very narrow passage between two pressure systems, a high to our north and a dreaded low to our south.

The net result was that the area we were in had reasonable conditions with winds 15 to 20 knots. I could see that 60 miles south of our position the wind was over 30k and seas over 4 meters. That is on top of the already large swell. I am very glad I do not have to tell you about any storm stories, although we were prepared for the worst.









These are screen shots Tom captured from Earth.NullSchool.net. "Null School" is a website that shows real time wind and wave conditions for the world. Our location is represented by the green circle (look closely). The green lines are the wind direction. The color indicates the strength, the darker the green the stronger the wind.

Every day Tom would plot our position and print the image. We had no idea Tom was doing this. It is a little scary to see where we were and what was going on around us. I will say it makes what we were hearing from our weather routers make a lot more sense. It is very cool to see the "big picture", thanks Tom.

All in all we feel very fortunate that we had the passage we did. And now that we know we can travel that kind of distance....the world is much smaller and those distant places are attainable.....

For now we are looking forward to taking the next year or two to slowly cruise the 1500 mile area of southern Chile. Most of this time we be inside the protection of the fjords to seeing some of the most remote, rugged, and few remaining places in the world that is still untouched by man.

So how about "Cape Horn or Bust"...or maybe even "Antarctica or Bust"?