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We left Rio Grande at 11am, 90 minutes after low water. We had to paddle a mile out to sea to get around the sand bars at the mouth of the river (which are covered up at high water). It was a pleasant paddle down to Cabo Peñas with a moderate wind slightly offshore, but mostly behind us. We stayed in close at the headland, finding a channel through the rocks which guard it. The wind was blowing strongly offshore across the next bay and we had a tricky 6 mile crossing, with breaking waves pushing us away from the land. We landed at Punta Maria where the road joins the coast (for the first time south of Rio Grande).

We are having a second day off in Rio Grande. Yesterday we bought food and a few other essentials for the next leg from Rio Grande to Ushuaia. Today is a rare day of 20 – 30 knot easterly winds so we are resting and eating! We do not want to kayak into a headwind when tomorrow we should have the wind behind us again. But we haven´t been totally idle! This morning we walked along the beach to check the wind direction, and drove a bit further down the coast with Monica & Marcelo. And Barry has got rid of a month´s facial hair!

We made it back to Rio Grande from the Chile / Argentinia border in 3 days. It was pretty good going covering 80 nautical miles in 3 days, and arriving in Rio Grande in time for lunch today!

It feels really good to be on the water again, seeing beautiful places, experiencing so many new things and meeting interesting people. The wind here is almost always strong, and is almost always from the NW or W, or somewhere inbetween. That is why we decided to go clockwise around Tierra del Fuego. While we are on the NE coast with an element of the wind behind us it certainly feels like the right decision. We wouldn´t have made much progress going in the other direction but we were surfing waves at about 5 knots a lot of the time in the last few days. Of course, from Ushuaia to Punta Arenas, the winds will be against us but hopefully we can find a bit more shelter from the wind in the channels, plus the wind is usually not quite as strong there.

There are so many birds here, its amazing. Grebes, terns, shags, petrels, oyster catchers, gulls…. and usually in big colonies. We were lucky to see about 5 penguins at the tip of the big long spit yesterday, and dozens of dolphins (the type that we rescued) jumped out of the water around us over the last 3 days. Today we stopped at a sealion colony south of Cabo Domingo and saw a few dozen huge, scary looking sealions.

We are resting in Rio Grande today and tomorrow. I have updated some of the older blogs with a few photos. Thanks to Marcelo for the photo of us.

9 February 53.35.92, 67.58.48
With 35 nautical miles under our belts we are tired, in a good way, and feeling happy.
We passed penguins at the end of the long spit and met Monica on the beach when we landed. We had to carry the kayaks a long way to get there!
Tomorrow we’ll make for Rio Grande, a place we know quite well!