We’re here! After a few months full of organising (and at times a bit of crisis management), we made it to Punta Arenas yesterday! We are very lucky that Kiko Quijada, a kayaker who we have never met, offered for us to stay with him in Punta Arenas while we prepare for our expedition. We are enjoying getting to know Kiko and his family and would like to thank them very much. Kiko runs a business organising kayaking, treking & sightseeing holidays in Patagonia. Please see his website and get in touch if you are interested in visiting this beautiful part of the world.

Unfortunately, due partly to a strike by port workers in San Antonio, our kayaks aren’t here yet. They are on their way and are expected on Friday 7th January. We were obviously disappointed when we found out, but actually it means we can relax a bit more in Punta Arenas. We are spending time with Kiko and his family instead of rushing around trying to do all our jobs and get on the water as quickly as possible. It’s also given me time to get to grips with using SPOT in Tierra del Fuego. According to SPOT’s own website, the satellite messenger doesn’t work down here, but actually it does.

For anyone who doesn’t want to know the nuts and bolts of our updates – check this blog for live tracking and daily updates! If you are interested in more detail, read the next paragraph.

You have probably noticed a map has appeared at the top of the blog! Thanks very much to Matt & the team at trackleaders.com for putting that together beautifully, and to Derrick Mayoleth for cleverly making it stay on the top of the blog for the duration of the trip. You’ll see a few pins in the map representing significant places on the journey, and a few photos taken by Marcus Demuth on his trip last year. If you look closely in Punta Arenas you’ll see a pin called ‘J’ – that’s us! You can even zoom in and see Kiko’s house. As we kayak round Tierra Del Fuego, SPOT will send back live updates on our position and the “J” pin will move around the map as we kayak ( don’t worry “B” will be there aswell). All being well, the map will update 2 or 3 times an hour when we are on the water. Once we land for the night, we’ll turn it off and send an “OK” message. That should appear on the map as an ‘OK’ message. The tracking seems to be working well here, but the OK messages aren’t getting through at the moment so please don’t panic if you don’t see one ( mum & Barry’s mum!). At the end of every day, we’ll also send an SMS to Karel Vissel using our satellite phone. We’ll send Karel our co-ordinates and a brief message about the day. Once Karel knows our position, he’ll send us a weather forecast for the next few days, and he’ll forward the message to my mum and a few other people. My mum will update this blog with the message, which will appear just below the map.

After a beautiful hot day yesterday, the weather today is more typical of this time of year here. It’s a bit colder with quite a bit of rain,although unusually there is still no wind. I expect the wind will return before our kayaks arrive!!  We’ve done half of our food shopping for the trip at the local supermarket & hope to do the rest at a bigger supermarket tomorrow.

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