We are staying with some very generous people.

BLOG CASA

Our hosts here have been amazing, they’re on board with the project and want to  help in any way they can. 

We’re staying in a comfortable little two bedroom apartment, nice and sunny, has a kitchen where we’re taking turns to cook for the group.  Right now I’m chewing on a toasted sandwich made by Howard.

The puzzle as to where to keep the shipping crate that Southern Cross has been shipped in, plus the gear that comes to help with preparation but which wont be be needed on the voyage was bothering us, but when we asked if the crate could be put on the road verge outside there was some rapid conversation, and consultation with Mama, and they’ve offered to keep the crate in the driveway that leads to an apartment that they’re building on the other side of the Casa from where we stay.   No cost, we offered, but no, no cost.  Wow!

That’s going to make live much easier for  us, the boat, the work that will done on it, and the crate all in one place and no worries about security or having to move lumber and stores from our original place to where we’ll work.

So much easier,  thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

For friendly, comfortable accommodation within walking distance of the central city and the waterfront,  highly recommended.

You'll meet Ivette David Rotenberg, Gonzalo Gallardo David, Carlos Gallardo David and Ivette Gallardo David

We’ve been in Punta Arenas for a few days now, got quite a lot of things organised but the boats not here yet, so the film team, that’s the five of us, took the ferry to Porvenir across the other side of Estrecho de Magellan, that fabled passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Its dangerous for sailing vessels, and in places even powered ships should proceed with caution.

The crossing it in the 2000 ton ferry was smooth, fast and efficient, I’d guess that it runs at around 18 knots and leaves very little wake, and as it came into Porvenir the helmsman followed the narrow channel up to the harbour and flicked this massive lump of a ship around a very tight 90 deg corner at a speed that would have towed a whole team of waterskiers.

Impressive.

The ferry, I was told that its about 2000 tons, carries 45 cars and 8 heavy trucks, 250 passengers plus some assorted freight. With time spent picking up the stern anchor and laying it again at the other end so they can hold the vessel straight on the ramp its about two hours from boarding to walking off at the other end. 

There is a little boatyard next to the ferry dock, which is just a very wide and gently sloping concrete boatramp, the ships landing barge type ramp being lowered onto the sloping concrete to allow cars and trucks to drive on and off.

That boatyard is about as simple as it  gets, I suspect that there is a big tractor somewhere and the fishing craft are simply dragged up the beach onto the flat, jacked up and put on blocks. 

The fishing boats are simple carvel built wooden boats, rough, powered in the main by converted truck engines, and for the most part are under 40 ft, some as small as 25 ft. They’re an interesting shape from a designers point of view with very fine entry, widely flared bows and a very flat run with the transom having little or no deadrise.

I’d say that they’ve evolved to cope with the short steep chop that is kicked up by strong winds here, that shape wont pitch much but I think some of the bigger ones would roll a lot.

The town is perhaps 2000 people, biting cold today, bleak, all of the buildings somewhat small, close together and inward looking, there is a surprising number of burned out shells of houses and warehouses in the town, perhaps a comment on old fashioned heating methods, and it overlooks a shallow harbour with a very narrow entrance.

It does have a charm of its own, in part because its  very different from anywhere else any of us have ever been, some of the views are stunning, and the buildings are very different.

A little corner shop in Porvenir, its about 12 ft square, seems to have one of every item ever seen in a corner shop. This is a land of contrasts, so many tiny businesses alongside a large and immaculately maintained military base, a very modern ferry terminal alongside a boatyard full of battered little wooden fishing boats, a modern Mercedes bus alongside the most beaten up Datsun pickup I've ever seen.  Interesting place.

Our first stop was the museum, where we learned a lot about the Yaghan and Ona people, the indigenous peoples, now extinct .https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/yahgan-ona-road-extinction

We also learned a lot of the history of the gold mining and farming industries that flourished here from around 1870 until the gold ran out in the early 1900s and the farming proved largely uneconomic, although there are still a lot of free range cattle farmed.

Currently the main income earner for the area is tourism, and a less fancy tourist destination you’d be very hard put to find, but the bus service ( phone him up and he comes to your house, toots his horn and picks you up, same in reverse with the return,  great service) which runs back and forth to the ferry about 8 km away is great.

We only had a couple of hours as today there was only the one ferry trip out and back, so we checked out the museum, went to a tiny little restaurant and had “a meal that couldn’t be beat” and I’m not kidding.  Simple fare, lots of it, tasty, warming and cheap.  In terms of value for money and simple satisfaction it was great.  Gnocchi, Casseroled chicken, a cold Chicken and corn dish, pork, beef and mashed potato.  Point to what you wanted and a dish FULL was handed to you.

That was the choice but it met with universal approval.

So it was back on the bus, a quick tour around town picking up locals heading for the ferry and a few minutes around the boatyard with the cameras for David and I then a seat in the warm passenger lounge for a little under 2 hours and we were heading “home” to our casa.

 A Ship shipping ship, when we first saw it it was shipping a ship which itself had ships on board. ( I could go on but I wont) It sinks down, floats the cargo onto the deck, pumps the tanks and lifts up, sails away and unloads the same way.  

It had an oil rig construction ship on board, which I think is going to be used to help in building a big wharf for a port extension.

View from the ferry as we came in, those little fishing boats are mainly hunting crabs, its the down season right now as the crabs are breeding. I've seen some of those crabs, and I'd hate to have them hunting me, they're BIGF. Around 20 inches across their legs and 6 or 8inches across the body.

The boats are interesting, wooden, rough, effective, ranging from about 25 ft up to 40 ft. There are giant stern trawlers out there as well, they catch the fish in deeper waters and I did get some pics of a couple of them up on the hard being maintained, 200 plus feet long, big deep vessels that do most of their fishing out in the Pacific. 

Good trip. Its an interesting place.

By the way some of these photos pan, I've made them large so you can pick up the detail but they need to be grabbed with the cursor and panned from side to side.

Punta Arenas, the southernmost city on earth.

There are settlements at Ushuia and Porto Williams, but they're quite small, P A is a city of close to 150 thousand.

While the air temperature is ok, probably around 16/18 degrees, the wind chill factor is fierce.  That wind cuts like a knife, and today it was blowing pretty hard.

The Straights out there were grey blue and white, roaring white capped waves marching endlessly as far as we could see.

Tough weather for sailing.

But of course we’re not, we’re ensconced in a nice little apartment, its warm in here behind the windows and it was my turn to cook tonight.  Stir fried chicken & mushrooms in rice with vegetables and the remains of a very nice loaf of bread with bananas or oranges for dessert.

My turn in the kitchen tonight,  didn't poison anyone which is good.

We’ve been around the town a bit today,  found the supermercado (supermarket), several outdoor equipment shops, our friend Mauricios café, and had a good long chat to our friend the Zone Commander of the Armada de Chile (Navy).

It gets a bit cold here at times, remember that this is summertime! 

Its been quite a profitable day from the point of view of getting some essential jobs done, there are a few more to be ticked off the list before the boat arrives, then more work on the boat, provisioning to do, find a means of transporting it, and get the boat all rigged and cold water sea trials to conduct.

We’re enjoying “Punta”, the architecture is interesting, the people friendly, the weather “different” and we’re getting the essential jobs done.

Sophie joins us tomorrow, she’s our translator so we’ll have a team of six to house, feed, ( I’m glad I only had five to cook for tonight,  the frying pan was pretty full) and transport.  But the cameras are running, the weather is bright, the boat arrives in three days and we’ve a place to work on it before we launch it.

The Boot brothers are getting pretty friendly with the Floral twins,  you can see an enigmatic little smile on each of the girls, while the brothers both of them have their tongues hanging out. 

I'm not sure about this. Could be trouble brewing if we're not careful!

Adios for now from Denny, Howard, David, Phil and myself. 

Blog from Argentina

Well. The Boot Brothers are at it again, off on an adventure.  You’ll recall that they tend to get into trouble if they’re allowed to go off on their own so I make sure to go with them. “Lacey”, that’s the one that fits on my left foot, is very outgoing, he’s the trouble maker. He’ll go off to explore anything that seems interesting and will kick anything he doesn't like to the curb, while his shy brother “Toe”  ( his mother named him that so no one would think he was a “heel” ) is the one who holds his tongue and just follows along one step at a time.

So far on this trip they’ve carried me off on a short drive into the city in son Brendans BMW 320( he’s very proud of it), a wait at the bus depot then a two hour ride on a pretty nice bus up to the Airport in Auckland city.

A longish wait, ( we like to get to the airport with time to spare) and we boarded a very nice Air New Zealand flight to Argentina.  The flight was 11 ½ hours which is a long time to be confined to such a tiny space but the seats on Air NZ are better than those on most aircraft so we were ok, able to sleep some and were well fed.

I watched “Suicide Squad” which was entertaining and “Petes Dragon”.  Not exactly intellectual stuff but it passes the time.

 Air NZ has just won the award for the worlds best airline, for the fourth year in a row! The service, the meals, the seating and the inflight entertainment is as good as it gets in cattle class. Recommended.

Buenos Aires, we arrived mid afternoon, but by the time we got ourselves through the very efficient customs and Immigration, got to our hotel and had a short break, a walk and a meal it was time for bed, after all we had to be down in the lobby for our taxi at 3 am. 

We wont get to see the city this time, about all I can say about  this part of Argentina is that its flat and busy, we could see the skyscrapers of the city off in the distance but with such an early start in the morning we couldn’t risk getting lost trying to go into town.

The Holiday Inn is a very nice, but typically western hotel, the kind you’d find in any country that handles a lot of travellers, sort of generic four star.  But the bed was comfortable, the meal, after some extended discussion in English with a waiter who only spoke Spanish, was good, and the desk service in the lobby as good as it gets.

3 15 am, a very zoomy cab ride back to the airport and a really slick check in, and here we are with an hour to wait before we head to the boarding lounge.

I like to look for differences when we, the Boot Brothers and I , are travelling, and cars are one of the “differences” that I watch for.  Renault and Citroen, with a good seasoning of VW, and a few Japanese built ( rebadged Mazda)  Fords make up the bulk of the vehicles, The trucks are almost all European, the buses Chinese or French, and most are modern and in fair condition.  Interesting, the only American vehicle we’ve seen was the worlds rattiest Ford F100, and believe me I’ve seen some ratty ones but this one beat them all.  Interestingly all the many many motorbikes are Indian, that’s not the “Indian” beloved of the USA vintage bike fans, but little 125cc bikes from India.  Thousands of them, like flies among a herd of cattle.

I did spot a very late model Bently Continental!

So as I write the Boot Brothers are under the table, conspiring with Dennys flower power shoes. There seems to be a lot of fraternisation going on under there, and while I’m glad that they’re getting on well, there seems to be a lot of giggling going on and I’m worried that unless I make sure that they’re put at opposite ends of the room at night they’re going to be getting into mischief.

Getting close to the big day

"The big day" being next Wednesday.  Its Sunday morning here and I've still a lot to get done before we fly out to Chile to meet up with Howard, David of Lutra Productions, Sophia who will travel south from Santiago to Punta Arenas to be our translator, ( I can say please and thank you, ask where the restroom is and order a meal as long as its chicken and rice with vegetables so I can survive in a Spanish speaking world, sort of).

For anyone who's not caught up with what this travel is all about, have a read in "here". http://below40south.com/   There are 10 videos under the "Media" heading, and lots of reading.

Yesterday I spent the day with family, we had an early Christmas lunch, I mowed the grass around Dennys house, have mine to do today, then its packing.  Lots of drawing to do, all stuff that I should have got done weeks ago but of late there really needed to have been two of me to get through all the jobs.  Wedging things apart enough to take a month out at the busiest time of year ( summer here of course, unlike you northern hemisphere people who are in the cold )  is not easy.  But one way or another Denny and I will be on that plane on Wednesday evening.

I've some tools to pack, there are a few little jobs to do on Howards boat, clothing for Santiago where the temps are plus 30 deg, thats around 90F,  and for Punta Arenas where it will be about 12 deg, thats early 50sF. So two lots of gear, tools, some reading matter, computer and charger plus adaptor plug.  I have to be able to carry all this, and there are weight limits on the airline so it will be probably about 25 kg, (55 lbs).

I will be blogging as we travel, so --- Watch this Space.