As I just said in my previous blog, this trip is full of continuing daily surprises. Not the least of which is that, apparently, I've ticked off another year this morning. Thanks to all who wished me feliz cumpleaños as we say here.
Not that anyone can understand what I say, but after months of listening to my Spanish For Idjits courses, I like to try conversation. If only those to whom I am speaking didn't look quite so mystified, I'd feel quite chuffed.
Making progress out here is a real challenge as the scenery, and we've done scenery before, is simply amazing......other than the Nullabor type, straight-as-die roads across wide expanses of desert. However, in their own way, these can be pretty interesting, at least for a while. Range after range of mountains reach off to the horizon in all colours. Ravines and chasms cut through the landscape where, at times, copious amounts of flood water patently scour the land. We spend a lot of time slowed down or at a standstill simply to "stop and gawp".
This morning we passed a sign that showed, "Ruta 40 - 4,000Km". I think that 4,000km to Ushuia. That's not in the agenda, at least right now but Puerto Natales is and that's only 3,300km.
No sooner had we flogged our way to the northernmost point of our trip, trying to escape the chill Patagonian winds, than it's now too bloomin' hot.
Since our last post we continued north to the Chilean / Bolivian border only to find it wasn't legal for foreigners to take a Chilean plated bike into Bolivia. Only Chilean permanent residents can do that, and, as we are barely resident anywhere, we were on a dusty wicket.
Fortunately, for once, we got a friendly Adouna who kindly made an "excepcion".......'cause we were really nice people. Anne's crying helped.
Two hundred and thirty kilometres of dusty gravel, broken up roads and nerves shot to pieces later, we blew in to the Bolivia metropolis that is Uyuni.
Our elder son had recommended we visit Uyuni. He also recommended we chew Coca leaves to avoid the effects of altitude, Uyuni being at 3,600 metres above sea level. As we drove through what looked much like a (brick) work-in-progress, ramshackle town, I had to wonder just how much Coca leaves he'd been chewing before coming to the conclusion that Uyuni was "brilliant."
Some long term readers might know I tend to think in pictures and what instantly came to mind was an image of Butch and Sundance arriving in Bolivia for the first time and stepping off the train in Santa Ines, into a dusty, broken down, adobe farmyard.
"It could be worse. You get a lot more for your money in Bolivia." said Butch.
"It could be worse" said Anne. At least we're booked into the fancy hotel.
An hotel with a spa!!!!
Jacuzzi, steam room and swimming pool, all on the edge of a huge desert. We couldn't help but feel guilty trampling all over the environment while relaxing on the, "pants off" massage table.
Chile is a long, skinny country, approximately two thousand six hundred miles south to north. By comparison, Los Angeles to New York is around two thousand two hundred and mainland Scotland is a fraction of these at about two hundred and twenty miles.
As I said in our previous blog, maybe we've bitten off more than we can chew. At least, that's what our backsides are saying.
We landed in Puerto Varas, where last February we ended our last attempt at motor biking Patagonia. Compared to the sunshine and packed beaches back then, the town was cold and wet with a minor hurricane blowing. And at between three and six degrees centigrade, it was decidedly chilly.
The original plan had been to head due east and nip up the mountains to the border into the lee of the Andes where the temperature was forecast to be a good ten degrees warmer. However, the border crossing is at over three thousand metres. With a skidoo that might have been possible. On two wheels, not so easy. I suppose the clue was in the folks carrying skis at the airport.
And so, the plan to cross the Andes was scratched and we decided to head strait north.
Looking at the forecasts, we began to picture Chile as a thermometer. Freezing in the south and warm, even hot in the north - so north we went, keeping going until we could finally switch off our twelve volt, heated underwear.
After two thousand, eight hundred and something kilometres, the heated underwear is still fired up. Yes, we're much farther north but, we're also two and a half thousand metres up on the altiplano, sunning ourselves in the blazing sunshine of San Pedro De Atacama, but, step out of the sunshine and, again, it's decidedly chilly.
Tomorrow, we've been talked into going for a swim in the Laguna Cerca. I believe they're at 10c.
I’ve been jammed full of great ideas (at the time) for many, many years. Since I could first talk, my mother might have said.
One of these great ideas was to buy an ocean cruising boat, just in case we could, one day, escape the rat race and retire at an age when we could manage the rigours of crossing oceans. Little did I know, the most taxing rigour, other than dancing around on the foredeck fighting a giant spinnaker pole, largely revolved around how best to keep one’s liver in decent shape.
Anyway, the “great idea” sprang from an event that you will best enjoy reading about in my “Forthcoming Book”. That event subsequently led to a lazy evening fiddling about on that amazing piece of time-wasting technology; the Internet.
It was while indulging in this invaluable research that I found the first Time Bandit, now known as Beige Bandit.
Long story, kept brief here so as not to spoil your future reading pleasure, in early 2008, we ended up buying Beige Bandit. It was all just perfect. The right spec, the right size, the right type of boat for our planned future endeavours and, most importantly, the right exchange rate. You see, Beige Bandit was a continent and an ocean away in Boston, USA.
Undeterred, we pushed ahead with the purchase and, come May 2008 we hopped on a flight across, “The Pond” to toss the boat in the water and sail it home to Scotland.
It was while we were somewhere over the aforementioned ocean that I glanced out the window. Down below, at sea level, there was mayhem. Even from thirty thousand feet you could tell it was absolutely honking. Huge foaming breakers leaving trails of spume and foam in their path.
“Oh oh.” I thought. “Maybe we’ve bitten off more than we could chew. Just four of us in our little boat in amongst that vastness.”
Obviously, we made it, relatively unscathed and it will make for a jolly good read. I hope.
Two days ago, on a flight to Puerto Montt, Chile, I once again looked out the window.
“Oh oh.” I thought. “Maybe we’ve bitten off more than we could chew.”
We were returning to South America to continue our attempt to motorcycle around its classic biking routes, power across miles of salt flats in Bolivia and zig-zag across the Andes, hopefully getting good weather to gawk at the Torres Del Paine and Aconcagua.
However, looking down, from horizon to horizon the mountains, through which I was planning to ride in just a few days were plastered in deep, freezing snow.
Another “great idea at the time.” So, here we go again. South America part ll.
We had a grand plan for this summer. First, check out the cruising in Vancouver. Second, join the Ocean Cruising Club 70th Anniversary celebrations in and around Long Island Sound. We'd then finish off with a cruise to Maine to gate crash more OCC festivities.
Vancouver went well from the wholly selfish perspective of getting out and about on a motorcycle, although, I have to confess, we didn't see much of the cruising grounds such where the weather forecasts.
New England went well, dropping in and out of Lo g Island's expensive yacht clubs. $135 per night for a mooring! Don't ask how much a gin and tonic cost.
When the time came to head north for Maine I thought I'd just check the engines.
I popped into the starboard engine, checked the oil. OK. Checked the coolant. OK. Checked the fan belt. All OK. Then, last up, check the oil in the Saildrive. Aaaarrgh. Would you flaming well believe it! The seals that I had paid "professionals" to replace in Grenada only in March and just a few hours on the engine were leaking. What should have been honey clear oil was a mush of emulsified oil and sea water. Aaaarrgh.
I was furious. I climbed out the engine room, shot into the cockpit to bend Anne's ear for no other reason than, as usual, she's the only one there.
"Would you believe it?" I yelled. "These idiots in Grenada have left the seals leaking". I was spinning around like a Tasmanian devil absolutely livid. However before I went any further I thought I'd better check the other engine. I opened up the hatch, climbed in. Unscrewed the dip stick and......aaaarrgh. It too was leaking. The oil looking more like yogurt than oil.
There went our trip to Maine as I'd have to absolutely minimise motoring.
Once I'd stopped spinning we formulated a new plan which was basically to find a flesh pot like Boston or Newport and, like the well-heeled of yesteryear, the Vanderbilts and the like, summer at the "cottage". Except our cottage was the boat.
And so, we whiled away quite a number of weeks watching the tourists, the classic twelve metres, schooners and luxury super yachts come and go. We walked for miles around Newport mansions a.k.a. cottages.
One day, for reasons I don't remember, I thought I'd check the engines again just to see if magically they had fixed themselves. And would you believe it? The port engine had!
Or, perhaps not. It seems that while I was spinning around like a dervish, cursing the engineers when I went to check the "other"engine, I'd actually checked the same engine twice!
Ooops!
Here's a bit of what we got up to - definitely Time Bandit holiday snaps as, once again, absolutely nothing of real interest has happened.
I think I wrote in an earlier blog that we're all a-dither about what to do next. There are a number of options...
- Join the Snowbirds and do the east coast USA to Caribbean / Bahamas shuffle. 1,800 and 1200 miles each way, respectively. Back and furrit as my brother would say. But we've now done that for the last two years.
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- Head for Europe, but what can us poor and soon to be heavily taxed Brexit folk do in ninety days. We'd no sooner get there than we'd be off hiding from immigration officials.
- Cross the Pacific. A very long way "back and furrit."
- Transit Panama and turn north for British Columbia and Alaska. Interesting, but such a hard slog north that some folk do the 4,000 mile circuitous route via Hawaii and we're not sure we're up for that amount of pain.
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- Or, to save all that effort, buy a trawler type thing and cruise British Columbia and Alaska.
So many choices.
In the end, we decided we'd check out British Columbia. Well, I did 'cause I had another cunning plan. Rent a motorcycle and whiz around for a while.
It's not our best video; but here's a look at what we got up to. Sailing content will resume shortly. Tomorrow morning actually when we up anchor from New York and head for the CheesyPeek, all the time dodging that pesky Gulf Stream.
One of the issues with sailing around on a “performance” catamaran is that its performance is directly proportional to how much stuff you carry onboard. Stuff, over and above the minimum required to sail the boat.
When anything new comes onboard we look for what we can chuck out of an equal weight.
On passage, we work out how far from land half way is, how many hours we’d have to motor in a disaster scenario, i.e. mast down, out of pies and the like, then carry that amount of diesel to get us to a place of respite. Preferably one that serves beer. We do the same with water. We do the math based on the recommended two litres per day times the maximum number of days we’d be lost at sea, less what’s already in the liferaft, and then take away the number of litres of wine, beer etc on board and that’s what we aim to carry.
Coastal sailing we’re being extravagantly careless if we have more than half tanks.
Last year, suddenly presented with an empty basement at the new home of the “Boston Lettons” we firstly dumped our spare genoa then sneaked in our Jordan drogue. On our passage south to Grenada the difference was amazing. It wasn’t really, in our usual thirty to forty knots, getting more speed isn’t usually the challenge. I don’t think we even noticed but we felt better.
However, for the last few months we’ve been gazing into the crystal ball trying to work out what to do next. Pacific north west - too wet. Europe - what can you do in three months? (thanks Brexiteers); Bahamas - a possibility. New Zealand and Australia. Jeez, that’s a long way but we’ve pals there.
We’re all a-dither but we did feel that in case we make a snap decision to head west, a long way west, we should have all the gear on board so, back came the genoa, that’s about 35kg and back came the drogue, another 25kg.
All that weight. What could we do to compensate?
And then it struck us. We were watching the Olympic gymnastics and all these wee girls dashing across the big matt, a quick hop, skip and a jump and then they’re twirling about in the air for what seems like endless minutes, apparently weightless.
So, like the athletes, if we were to jump up and down alternately, so one of us is in the air at all times, we’d immediately save, what, upwards of a massive seventy plus kilos?
Genius. Problem solved!
Meanwhile, the unanswered problem is, “what to do next”. Any preferences?
ex dinghy and keelboat racers now tooled up with a super sleek cat and still cruising around aimlessly, destination Nirvana...
Extra:
Next up....the Caribbean. We've left South Africa in our wake and now off to Namibia, St Helena, Brazil, Suriname and into the Caribbean. Well, that' the vague plan. We'll see what happens.