Once passed the Golfo de Penas, at least we are in the channels : First Messier channel, wide, impressive and we are lucky to sail downwind. The anchorages in the caletas follow one another , always closer to the trees, moss and lichens, well sheltered when the wind is howling. We will pass too quickly in Puerto Eden, last refuge for the kawesqars, but the bad weather will not permit us to linger. There is only a few indian families here, the others are in Puerto Natales or Punta Arenas, they have not disappeared. Now the children celebrate Haloween…
For nearly 2 months we will live isolated in this nature which has not changed since 10 000 years. No roads, no houses, a few fishermen, wrecks, birds, dolphins, otters and sea lions. We think of those who came before us, we read again Slocum, we watch once more the movie “Feurland”, the german expedition of 1928, with Gunther Plüschow, Captain of his sailing boat and seaplane. They had met the last canoeros and you can see in their look that they know they are a condemned folk, living on borrowed time. We come too late, of course, but we keep the feeling to share the same environment, to drink at the same springs, to cut the same wood to keep us warm, to meet the same animals. We think of their nomade life, devoid of everything, in the cold, the wind and the rain when we come back to our warm stove.
We progrees slowly in the channels : Concepcion, Inocentes, Sarmiento, Magallanes, Cockburn, Brecknock….to end in the Beagle and its fantastics icefields. Here we will meet again the same scenery than in Alaska, the same alpine vegetation, but the condors have replaced the eagles. The Darwin Cordillera and the Romanche icefield fascinate us. In Caleta Beaulieu we will leave our track, perhaps one day will we come back ?

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Puerto Montt, now we are far from the quiet rios of valdivia, the port, overlooked by volcanos, facing the ocean and the close Chiloé island. Fishing boats are packed in the Tenglo canal, we make our shopping at Angelmo, a turistic place where the people of Chiloé sell their vegetables. We will attend the “Fiesta Patria”, with cavalcade, dances, children and parents in traditional dress, fairstands, we will take the opportunity to be in the Club de Yates Reloncavi to haul out and paint our Skoiern before sailing to Chiloé.
Just a little tour to Argentina, by bus, to renew our visas ( we are now since 6 months in Chile), then we croos the Andes for Bariloche, the “Argentin Swiss”, and make provisions of chocolate, books, kisses to the Saint Bernard and wonderfull sceneries.
Mechuque, outpost of Chiloé, where wooden boat are still built in cypres, caulked with alerce bark, where the house are on piles, the palafitos we will meet again in Castro, where the sheeps wander in the streets, and where swans, cormorans, steamer ducks surround us.
Quemchi, home of Francisco coloane, with his museum, its fishermen changed in artists. Castro, the colorfull, its splendid wooden church, then Quellon, far in the south, where a huge fishing fleet take shelter.
We go on South, the weather is fine to cross the Bocas del Guafo, the volcanos follow us, we arrive in the Chonos islands, last archipelago before the Gulf of Penas and the Patagonian channels. There is nothing left of the Chonos, they have disappeared a long time ago, swallowed by history, without leaving any track.

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Nearly five months that we are in Valdivia, we didn’t see time flying, and we could want to stay longer, as we love this country so much. Valdivia, where so many sailers,  famous and unknown, came trough, where we will have news of those who came before us, where we will met our friends of “Fleur de Passion”, met Arnaud and Morgane of “Paradise”, Marja and Stephen, on “Motu”, met Tite,  companion for the South seas of Willy de Ross…In the Club de Yates of Valdivia as much as in  La Estancilla we will be welcomed, helped, spoiled by Jorge, Marcelo, Humberto, Jonathan, the friend Chacho… The dogs Samanta and Maxima will stuck to us.  Valdivia, it’s also our gate of entry for Chile, a country we wanted to reach for a long time. We will discover it, the soil is rich here, the fluvial market is realy gorgeous, the food is good, the vine too, the beer flows, inheritage of the German colons whose print and presence are strong. There are the  Mapuches, dwellers of this land since millenniums, facing the modern world, there is the marks of the past, deep, witness of men’s folly and of the wrath of nature. there is the rios, the woods of eucalyptus, the mimosa, the copihue, the emblematic flower of Chile, multituds of birds, grebs, pelicans, swans, kingfishers….ibis, vultures. There are the horses, splendids. There is rain too, of course, but sun also, the climate is warming….

We will soon sail for Puerto Montt, then Chiloe, we will tell you.

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Valdivia, Chili. 4986 milles, 57 jours de mer depuis Bahia Samara !

La route a été longue depuis San Francisco. Il a fallu d’abord nous arrêter au Mexique, à Cabo San Lucas, haut lieu du tourisme…pour laisser passer la tempête tropicale Rick, puis nous réfugier à La Paz, pour nous protéger de Sandra, dernier cyclone de la saison. Mais l’alerte aura été chaude, nous avions sous estimé El Niño, et nous attendrons fin décembre pour repartir pour le Costa Rica. Il nous faudra encore subir les colères des golfes de Tehuantepec et Papagayo avant d’arriver à Bahia Samara où nous attendait notre ami Christian, Clarissa et Nicole. Retrouvailles de marins, au mouillage dans cette baie magnifique, dans un pays où le tourisme n’a pas encore réussi à défigurer la nature, nous serons choyés, gâtés, prêts à affronter la longue route qui nous attend.

L’océan va se jouer de nous, l’anticyclone se dérobera, les calmes vont nous éprouver, mais le 1er avril  au petit matin nous mouillerons notre ancre dans le Rio Valdivia, face à la marina La Estancilla, heureux d’arriver enfin dans ce pays dont nous rêvons depuis si longtemps.

Il nous faudra un moment pour nous remettre des ciels étoilés, de la ronde des  planètes, du ballet des albatros, de l’immensité de la haute mer.

Photos : Les pélicans de Sausalito – En mer – Cabo San Lucas : pélican et touristes – La Paz : Les requins baleine, El viejo y el mar : “Tengo un barco de papel…” , les fresques de Ulise Gomez,  – Mer de Cortez – Puerto Sacrificios –  Bahia Samara : Christian et son bateau, Clarissa et Nicole, les iguanes de Guanacaste – Pacifique Sud …

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