I've kept my instruments going to watch the depth of the water and at low tide and yesterday it bottomed out at 2.4 meters with the occasional display of 2.3 meters. I figure that the boat was riding within inches of the bottom and the keel will sooner or later make contact. But I've been told that the bottom is sand and there will be no damage. There is no swell in the inner harbor, which is a big help.
Brenda wrote that even though I had updated my boat position at the Pangolin site (http://www.pangolin.co.nz/yotreps/tracker.php?ident=VNW5980) it still showed me as being in the wrong position at the north end of the harbor at the naval base. I did some investigating and learned that the Pangolin site will report positions to the nearest minute. So even though I reported my latitude as 38 degrees 02.45 minutes, Pangolin reports it as 38 degress 02 minutes. Longitude is similarly reported. This means that the reported position can be up to a half mile from the true position, which does not matter when one is out at sea, but can yield strange results when zoomed in on a tiny area such as this harbor.
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| Stig's Boat |
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| Large Modern Boat |
After we tied up at the slip I noticed that the new boat that I had photographed that morning was tied nearby. That night I was looking at the boat and wondering the nationality of the flag and the owner, Stig, came by and we had a good conversation. The flag is Norwegian and Stig is a remarkable person.
He built the boat himself over a period of 4 years. The boat is a gaff rigged ketch with a long bowsprit and is based on the Hans Christian design. He rented the mold and laid the glass hull himself and did everything else himself except the rigging and some of the electrics. He even did the stainless steel welding himself. He told me that he was a mechanic by trade and had most of the necessary skills.
On the passage south from Brazil he battled headwinds for 4 days and two of his stays failed even though the rigging was only a year old. His cockpit GPS also failed which was caused by the failure of a solder joint. I mention this because he told me that those were the only two things that he had not done himself, and from now on he will do everything himself. He re-rigged in Brazil and it took him 4 weeks to get the stays.
He is on his way to Ushuaia and the Beagle Channel with plans to do the inland passage up the Chilean archipelago to Puerto Montt. I expressed amazement that he was planning to do it alone in such a big boat, given the extraordinarily challenging anchoring that will be required. He has no HF radio, so he cannot get weather reports, nor radar, and no refrigerator.
His rough plans to work his way across the Pacific to Australia, then up to Japan then head for Alaska across the North Pacific. He'll then cross the Panama Canal and head for Greenland. He likes cold weather. He mentioned running dog sleds and sleeping in snow caves in Norway.
Yesterday I loaned him my copy of Ocean Passages and its useful charts and I hope to see more of him before he moves on in a week. He told me that he can't speak Spanish or Portuguese and is very happy to be able to speak with someone in English.
I've also included a photo of one of the larger boats in this tiny harbor.
Last night I visited John and Jonathan for dinner aboard their boat. John produced a superb roast dinner of lamb and potatoes and I took a bottle of Argentinian cabernet sauvignon that was so smooth that I've decided to give up on the cheap cardboard wines. After all, it isn't like good wines here are expensive. I paid 24 pesos for that bottle, which is equivalent to about $5.00. Jose is hoping that a bank transfer comes through so that he can take over 22,000 pesos in cash though the streets of the city to the Prefectura to pay his Malvinas fine, which must be paid in cash (?). If that works out he'll sail for Buenos Aires this weekend.
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