Well it's been a while since I up dated the blog but we are on the move again. We spent Christmas in Ushuaia with a group of friends from the other charter yachts that were also having a Christmas break. After Christmas Magnus had to go back to England to do some work with his company there so I had to find new crew for Pelagic. After talking to a couple of people I found a couple of good candidates, Lyr from Israel and Charly from Brazil, as there was space on the next trip for an extra crew I decided to take both along. Lyr is an excellent cook and boss of all below decks, and Charly is settling into life on deck driving the tender etc.

Our guests came on board on the 20th and we departed Ushuaia for Puerto Williams, Cape Horn and the Beagle Channel. Our guests this time are a group of rugby playing (or ex rugby playing) friends - a mixed bunch from France, New Zealand, and the USA. So we have six nations represented in our crew of eight.

We had a short night in Puerto Williams and after checking the weather and what routes we are allowed to navigate to Cape Horn we decided to make an early start the next morning to explore the Beagle Channel. We left the Mikalvi at 05:00 and headed out into a stiff breeze, the 45 miles or so from Puerto Williams Caleta Ferrari took us almost 14 hours to complete tacking our way up the channel mostly motor sailing. YUK! A quick visit ashore to meet old friends Marcel and Jose and we had arranged a horse ride for everybody the next day. I am allergic to horses in more ways than one - horses are dangerous at both ends and uncomfortable in the middle - so I stayed behind to do some chores and maintenance whilst the other seven headed off to tortue themselves on the horses.

They all came back claiming to have enjoyed the ride but today as I write this some are starting to hold their backs and walk a little funny. Once the ride was complete and lunch lunched we started to prepare an asado of a whole lamb a few fish that Marcel had given us a couple of chorizos for appetizers a few bottles of wine and some beers, a good time was had by all !

This morning we left Yendegaia to head for Caletta Olla but had no sooner turned into the main channel when we started getting hit by guests up to 40 knots and were not making much progress to the west so I decided that we would return to Yendegaia and wait for the wind to fall. We anchored in Caleta Contreras, had some lunch, a few brave souls went for a swim, played with some dusky dolphins in the tender and most of us went for a walk ashore. Ashore we found a large beaver dam and a lot of indian middens from an age gone by. This is an interesting little caletta, definitly worth a visit.

Looking at the forecast I am hoping for a smoother channel in the morning so we are going to eat early and make an early start in the morning for Caletta Olla. Fingers crossed for less breeze.