Justine’s Blog

13 January; Coordinates 52.38.80S, 70.19.85W
Exciting surf today. Paddled 22 nautical miles in 5 hours. Spotted an albatros and again saw lots of other birds.
We’ll probably camp here, sheltered from the gale by an old hut. Going to eat and relax now, having fixed Barry’s broken skeg.

12 January: Coordinates 52.53.66 70.42.42
Finally on our way with an unexpectedly good five hour paddle.
The headwind died then went north east. It was nice to kayak near to the shore and we saw penguins, lots of other birds and even a seal!
We have heavy rain now but have found a good, flat place to camp and are happy.

Gas prices are going up in the Magallenes region and a lot of people in Punta Arenas are on strike! The main road to where we were planning to launch is closed and the port is closed. It’s also windy from a NW/ NNW direction so it’s not an ideal day for starting. However, it looks like it is POSSIBLE to launch today at a different place, and with the authorization of the navy. So we plan to launch in a few hours. We probably won’t go far because of the wind but if we do manage to leave, it will be great to be on the water, no matter how small our first few steps are! If we do go, you should start to see us moving on the map at the top of the blog. www.cackletv.com/justines-blog

I think the first stages of madness are setting in!

Today started well as we passed the kit inspection & got our passports stamped by the police so we can kayak across the Chile/ Argentine border. Just when we thought we were ready

to leave we were told that we don’t have permission to start kayaking until the Armada (navy) considers the weather forecast is good enough. There is a force 4/5 headwind which is due to increase so we probably wouldn’t have gone anyway but it’s day 11 and we’re anxious to get going soon. It would be nice to be able to make the judgement and decision about when we launch ourselves so we could react quickly & jump on the water if the wind drops or swings round to be  more behind us. The first stretch of coast has lots of landing options and is very close to a road so we could get off the water quickly if we wanted or needed to.

I shouldn’t really be surprised at this decision as it’s becoming a pattern that just when you think all the i’s are dotted and the t’s are crossed, it turns out that the j’s need to be dotted aswell!

I’m mostly succeeding in seeing this as all part of the adventure, but we would both like to get kayaking pretty soon. Tomorrow may be too windy aswell, but we’ll see.