Up the Beagle
18 January 2013
Apologies for no recent postings.Even the Iridium satellites cannot penetrate the deep, dark, rocky canyons which have become our home. The Beagle Channel is testing even when the weather seems set fair.Travelling westwards there is a constant one knot current against you, and a inevitable wind shift also against you at every tack. There are nasty little catabatic winds to deal with; these tumble down the hillside as soon as they see you coming and shove the lee rail under and leave the rigging twanging. Once, we had dump to the main completely, heeling so much that the loose boom and water met. Then we got the whole main down as fast as we could. Five minutes later the wind was down the fifteen knots which is almost a calm round here. Mostly the winds seems to come precisely from the direction in which we wish to go, and at between 25 - 30 knots. If it drops below 20 we wonder what's gone wrong. But this boat is loving this kind of sailing and behaves superbly, eating up the miles and with no motorsailing which we were advised was vital to make progress. Of course, the flat water helps as we are effectively sailing in a narrow river, although a nasty little chop soon sets up. Planning is tricky, and after Isla Martinez our plans for thirty miles progress were blown apart and we diverted to a sheltered fjord, Yendegaia, with a small, rickety-looking estancia (farm) at the head of the bay. Dogs barked and the front door of the one-roomed shack was open but no one was seen. A herd of (apparently) wild horses gathered around us as we landed and took their rough tongues to the dinghy to lick off the salt. The water, we noticed, was the colour of asparagus soup; silt-laden and brought down from the melting ice-cap above. Malcolme says he is going to swim in the Beagle Channel. We do not think this will happen He also says he is going to write an epic poem about his adventure but is stuck for something to rhyme with 'Channel' so we think this will not happen either.