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I’m used to launching my kayak wherever I like & until now have taken that for granted. But to paddle in Chile & Argentina we need permission from the 2 countries’ navies. Getting that rubber stamp is in some ways more tiring than the kayaking will be. We’ve been writing letters to the authorities for several months already, with the invaluable help of Kiko in Chile, and Monica Aramburu & Marcelo Rosado in Argentina. Today we spent over 2 hours at the Chilean Armada office in Punta Arenas, going over our planned route, finding out that we need to phone them every 3 days to report our position, & we need to contact certain lighthouses & Armada bases when we pass. When our kayaks arrive, members of the Armada will come and inspect all of our kit and make sure we have all the equipment in their mandatory list. If they are satisfied then we get the ‘ZARPE’, permission to navigate that we need. While it would be much easier for us to just get on the water, this is a very rough, windy and potentially dangerous place to kayak so I can understand why they want to make sure that the people who kayak here are experienced and well prepared. The officer we met stressed that the more information they know about where we are, the better they are able to help if we need them.

Also today we did some more shopping, looked around Punta Arenas, celebrated Kiko’s wife Veronica’s birthday, got permission from the customs office to temporarily import our kayaks, sampled ‘matte’ tea… and the day just went by without stops. It’s nearly midnight and Kiko is writing another letter for us…. I can’t wait to get kayaking!

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.

I have about 24 hours left to finish packing, organizing and modifying for Tierra del Fuego. A lot of our kit is already packed but there are a few last minute decisions about things we might leave behind & things we want to take after all. I have multiple cameras, batteries, memory sticks and chargers to sort out, and we both have a few jobs to do to make sure things run smoothly at home while we’re gone, not to mention, finding time to submit our tax returns!

Today we went for a last minute paddle to test out a few bits of kit. We had planned to do this a few days ago but Barry had a severe case of man flu so we had to postpone it!

Barry was testing out his new Reed drysuit. Chris Reed has put hard-wearing cordura on the seat and knees for him and he has single thickness wrist seals. I was seeing how warm my new icebreaker thermals are (very!), and playing with the Oregon Scientific ATC9K camera. I am taking 2 of these cameras to Tierra del Fuego as my on-the-water POV camera. I tested the camera for Seakayaker magazine and was sufficiently impressed with it to want to use them on this once-in-a-lifetime trip. See the full review in an upcoming edition of ‘Seakayaker’.

Thanks to our local kayak store, Surflines, in Llanberis, who have sponsored us with a few bits of gear that we still needed, like a compass with a mirror (we need to have a signal mirror to satisfy the navy in TDF), a pelicase for my G10 camera & lots of bits of string!

Thanks to Kari-tek for a couple of paddle bags for our Mitchell blades, and to Lyon Equipment Uk for giving us some lovely Ortlieb drybags, aquapac waterproof cases and a pair of Julbo floating sunglasses.

We’re working on a map for our Tierra del Fuego trip that will be updated live as we paddle using our SPOT device. Thanks to Track leaders for making that happen.

Enough talk… I’ve got plenty of things to be getting on with!