Hello from Buen Suceso Bay, on the east coast of Tierra del Fuego! Barry and I are  6 days into our kayaking trip and are having a great time.  The first few days down the Northeast coast were similar scenery to last year  with low sandy grey cliffs, gravel beaches and occasional wide peaty rivers.   We have seen so many birds, lots of different species and so many of them. The futher south we paddled, the wilder and more rugged the coast became, the further we got from roads and human influence, the stronger the tides, and the more birds, sealions and fur seals we saw.  The coast became rockier with more trees and greenery.  I love wild places where wildlife thrives without too much disruption from man. There are always birds flying overhead, one day a cloud of hundreds of dark petrels  flying low over the waves, yesterday a curious albatros, black and white cormorants that look like penguins (to us anyway!), a funky looking heron, ducks, geese, vultures. There is even a small perfectly white bird which feeds on sealion and furseal poo!! There have seen an awful lot of them!  Not sure why they are white, though?

We´ve camped in some great spots. Every day we´ve landed early enough to take a look around the area. One night we camped near a cliff where 11 condors were roosting and saw a few of them soaring above majestically. That was amazing.  Last night we slept in a refugio (refuge) hut in Bahia Tethis. Many years ago this place  was  a sealion factory.  There are old ovens and ramshakle buildings and a huge pile of rotting sealion pelts. It looks as if people just left one day and left things where they were. The ´refugio´ was fantastic though. I don t know who made it into a wonderful shelter, but thank you. We spent most of the day indoors, lit the wood burning stove, cooked pita breads with melted cheese and ham, followed by pancakes with dulce de leche, drank plenty of drinks and enjoyed a wonderful place.

We have had pretty good conditions most days. It is usually so windy here but it hasn´t been too bad most days, and there isn´t much swell so we haven´t had any surf landings. I think that´s partly because weve had a lot of early  morning paddle and have b been off the water pretty early and the winds tend to get stronger later in the day. Yesterday we were off the water at 10am!!

The biggest challenge has been when the tide goes out! It goes out 2 miles in places along that NE coast and there are many shallow sharp rocks. One day the wind was strong and offshore and we didnt want to go around all the rocks 2 miles offshore as the wind was pushing us away from land forcefully. We tried to stay inside some of the rocks (a tactic that had worked the day before) but on this occassion we got trapped in a huge bay that was emptying fast, exposing razor sharp rocks,   thick kelp beds and  noisy rapids as the tide flowed over rock shelves! After trying to paddle out to sea for half an hour, we gave up and padded back into shore. We had to carry the kayaks over some exposed rocks and then found deeper water again and could kayak to a steep gravel beech, where we stopped early!

Today we arrived at Buen Suceso where we knew there was an Armada post. It s a beautiful spot, a golden sandy spot surrounded by mountains, with a view across to the magnificant Islas de las Estados.  5 men live here for 45 days, then a boat comes and takes them back to Ushuaia and brings the next lot of workers! We have spent most of the day chatting to the guys, and they fed us  delicious hot chocolate followed by steak for lunch! Expedition life is really tough! Actually, I´ve felt very content and happy most of the time on this trip!

We hope to leave here tomorrow and head down to the SE tip of  the coastline where we spotted a beach on google earth. From there, we expect headwinds all the way back to Ushuaia so it may take us some time to get there! We will paddle when the winds are less strong and rest when the white caps litter the bays.

Thanks to Sonja, who gave us some presents before we came away with dates on! We got to open the first one yesterday which was a very welcome chocolate bar and seseme seed bar!! Thanks also to Monica for going out of her way (and always saying ¨its nothing¨) us get to Punta Maria with everything we needed.

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