The morning of Friday, April 6 we slipped off the mooring lines at Puerto Amistad to begin our journey through the shallows (even at high tide) and out of the Chone River. We immediately discovered that our propeller was completely caked with very large barnacles. We had elected not to have anyone scrape the barnacles before we left because we intended to do it ourselves (Ric) once we were out of the river. Because of this, our engine would only accelerate up to 1500 rpm. The blades on the propeller weren’t spinning properly so we had only enough propulsion to make about three knots. In addition, this caused white smoke to expel from the exhaust causing us a bit of concern. In idle, the engine revved up just fine so we knew it had to be the barnacles. We elected to keep going to get out of the river; if we had turned back to clean off the barnacles we would have had to wait another week to leave when the higher tides returned. We made it out okay but not without incident. First we bumped the bottom, then we actually got stuck on the bottom (luckily it was sand and we were able to shimmy off) and, finally, we caught one of the fishing buoys under our rudder (thankfully it didn’t get stuck in the propeller…there were many fisherman around to assist us if we needed it). Once out of the river and in the “waiting room” anchorage, we dropped the anchor and Ric immediately got in the water to scrape the running gear, rudder and other parts of the hull. We had been in the river for about 35 days and the barnacles were thick and very large (Did we mention that?).

After spending a bumpy and rolling night, we departed (with everything in good working condition) at 0630 the next morning. Again we dodged long lines and fishing buoys…successfully. Our destination that day was Isla De La Plata aka “poor man’s Galapagos.” We had a very nice motor sail in about 10 knots (sometimes less) and calm seas. We saw two whales, four large sea turtles and many dolphins. We were lucky and caught a 10 pound mahi which we had for dinner that evening.

Upon arriving at Isla De La Plata, we tied up to a mooring ball. Serenity pulled up next to us and we rafted up with them since the other moorings were either too close together or already in use. This made it very easy to share the mahi and enjoy dinner together. The park ranger stopped over to greet us. He asked how long we wanted to stay and where we were from. He was pleasant, shared some information in Spanish that we didn’t really understand and left without asking for any money. After dinner (and after dark) we noticed a huge amount of fish swimming under the boat. We turned on our underwater lights and shined a flash light into the water. There were hundreds of fish, large turtles, skinny worms that looked like snakes, krill and about five baby turtles. The babies were so cute. Roy was even able to scoop one up and brought it aboard so we could all hold it. It let us rub under its neck and actually seemed to like it. Very cool!!!

The anchorage was completely calm as there wasn’t much wind so we all had a restful night. It wasn’t until about 0400 that the mooring ball began hitting the hull. Later that next day, we tied the mooring ball off to Serenity so no more banging.

We took advantage of the calm anchorage to finish cleaning the bottom of our boat and we did a little laundry since the water maker was back in operation after being pickled while we were in the river. After the work was done, we spent some time feeding and playing with the turtles that would come to the boat. They took celery and pineapple rind right out of our hands. Ric was even able to touch one of them on the shell and the head. Pretty awesome!!! We didn’t see the baby turtles again so we figure they were either hiding or hadn’t survived as they were probably from a freshly hatched nest.

After spending a second night, we took the dinghy to shore to see if we could walk around the island. The ranger met us at the beach and asked for $40 per person for a guided tour (in Spanish only). Since we were unable to walk the trails without a guide and we didn’t really want to pay $80 for a tour we wouldn’t be able to understand, we elected to return to the boats and get ready to depart for Easter Island.