NO FLYING FISH DOWN THERE

Coryn and Tony Gooch

In March 1996 we left Germany in our newly acquired 42ft aluminium sloop Taonui. She was built in 1989 to sail in high latitudes with a high level of safety and comfort. With three watertight bulkheads, a full keel and tankage for 800 litres of water and 850 litres of diesel she is by no means a racing machine, but can still run off 130-150 miles a day on an ocean passage.

We stopped at Lymington for some repairs and additions, including switching to a roller furling genoa. Our intent was to reach Antarctica in January 1997 by way of Panama and the canals of southern Chile. This meant a late (12 May) departure from the UK with a three day stop in Madeira. A study of the pilot charts and hurricane frequency and tracks suggests that a late season crossing is safe and usually fast as the trades are still reasonable strong -- at least, that's the theory! We took nineteen days to get to Grenada, arriving on 12 June. The first hurricane of the previous season had hit the Leeward Islands on 8 July so we had about a month in hand.

Half way across the Atlantic we had one of those nightmares that haunt cruising sailors contemplating changing from hanked-on headsails to roller-furling. As an indirect consequence of bad installation, the second and third extrusions on our new furling gear came apart, the bolt rope was cut and the sail was torn. We could not lower the sail, and had to sail the last 1000 miles with a misshapen half-rolled genoa or a staysail.

We were able to solve the problem in Chugaraumas, Trinidad and had the genoa repaired. The rapid growth of the yards and services available in Chugaraumas has been well documented in recent issues of Flying Fish. Also, importing parts into Trinidad is quite painless and duty free, which is certainly not the case in the rest of the Caribbean.

We made several stops in Venezuela, including Puerto La Cruz where we filled up with diesel at 2 cents a litre! Petty theft and mugging are not uncommon on some parts of the Venezuelan coast and the area around Cumana, to the east of Puerto La Cruz, should be avoided as there were several quite bad incidents there in 1996. However the offshore islands of Aves and Los Rocques are definitely worth a visit, with isolated anchorages, white sand beaches, warm water, great snorkelling and abundant bird life. They are a National Park and have limited resources, and Venezuela is trying to maintain their environment. Yachts should anchor clear of coral, and we were appalled to see the crew of a beautiful British yacht spear-fishing for lobsters. It is prohibited and they knew it.

Sarifundy's marina in Spanish Harbour on Curacao is one of the more friendly and pleasant anchorages in the Caribbean, despite being a rather long bus ride to the main town of Willemstad. It is also an excellent, hassle-free place in which to import parts from Europe or the US.

Two days out of Curacao en route to the Panama a team of six men from a US Coast Guard boarded us in the middle of the night under the guise of a `safety check'. Finding only a `well past middle aged' couple and no drugs, they filled out several forms and gladly left as two of the team were turning green with the unaccustomed motion of a yacht hove-to in a bouncy seaway.

We arrived in the Panama Canal zone at 0400 on 4 August in the most earsplitting, eye-popping thunderstorm imaginable. The sky seemed to be full of water and it was very difficult to find our way through the breakwaters and down to the Flats where yachts anchor awaiting clearance. Cristobal, on the Caribbean side, has really gone downhill in recent years and is not a safe place except in the area around the immigration and customs offices. The yacht club is totally safe and very helpful. In contrast Panama City, on the Pacific side, is vibrant and a great place to visit with excellent supermarkets and commercial services. Even so, travel by taxi is still advisable.

From Panama we sailed directly to Salinas, Ecuador, keeping at least a hundred miles off the coast of Colombia to avoid any incidents with the local fishing fleet. The Gulf of Panama was hot and muggy and the winds were light, and the nightly thunderstorms spectacular and rather menacing. The wind gradually shifted to the south and strengthened so that the last part of the trip was hard on the wind, either sailing or motoring. It is best to sail on an offshore (port) tack during the night and an inshore tack during the day, when the wind usually follows the sun and shifts from south to southwest. At night, offshore breezes are not uncommon.

We have heard of yachts stopping in Esmeraldas and Manta, but the most popular stopping place in Ecuador is Salinas. The yacht club is located five miles inside a long, low peninsular which provides excellent protection from the southerly winds and swell. Salinas is the summer beach resort for the major cities of Guayaquil and Quito, and the entire beachfront is taken up with high-rise condominiums. The yacht club is the centre of social activity with tennis courts, swimming pool and several excellent restaurants. It has an active dinghy fleet and many racing yachts. Visiting yachts lie at anchor outside the club mooring buoys, where the holding is excellent in sand. It is a safe place to leave a yacht whilst travelling inland to the interesting and beautiful tourist areas in central Ecuador.

From Ecuador to southern Chile there is a choice of routes -- offshore or inshore. The offshore route is the traditional sailing ship route from the north Pacific to southern Chile or the Horn. The theory is to skirt around the south Pacific high by staying close-hauled on a southerly course between the longitudes of 90°W and 120°W, until the westerlies are encountered around 35° to 40°S for the run into Valdivia.

The inshore route is against both the prevailing southerly wind and the Humboldt current. Although it takes a longer elapsed time than the offshore route, the inshore route has a number of attractions. The coastal towns in northern Chile are well worth a visit and with few yachts travelling this coast the welcome at the small yacht clubs and villages is generous. The anchorages in the Atacama desert are a totally unique experience. With the availability of anchorages, the inshore route is a great deal easier than the rough offshore passage, particularly for smaller yachts.

We decided on the offshore route, and sailed twenty-six days and 3100 miles to reach Valdivia in a long loop. Most of the trip was close-hauled, beating across the southeast trades, but unfortunately the high was very unstable, shifting north/south, and east/west. The sailing was often rough and boisterous, and the weatherfax from Valparaiso was useful even if it only told us why we were still hard on the wind! We encountered a trough at 24S 92W that had spun off from a low to the south, and were forced to lie to a drogue for forty-eight hours in force 8-9 southeasterlies. For the most part it was a long sail on a port tack, and only in the last few days did the wind shift into the south and allow us a close reach into Valdivia. On the last night, in a clear starlit sky, we were treated to a full eclipse of the moon -- very exciting and awe inspiring.

Valdivia is an excellent place to pause and re-group before heading south. The city itself is situated nine miles up the R¡o Valdivia, the only navigable river in Chile. There is a small yacht club with very friendly staff and members situated half mile from the centre of town, plus an `outstation' at La Estancilla four miles downstream on the north bank. Next door is the Alwoplast boatyard, established ten years ago by Dagmar and Alex Wopper. It now builds sophisticated catamarans and can carry out almost any yacht repairs in fibreglass, steel or aluminium. It also has one of the widest travel lifts in the world and can haul yachts up to 30 tons. In 1996 they were building docks for visiting yachts and intend to install showers, telephones and a laundry. In addition, Dagmar operates a first class sail loft in association with Lidgaard Sails.

In Valdivia we met Miles Quitmann and Gareth Jones on Ayesha, a 36ft fibreglass ketch out of Falmouth. They were in the process of replacing their mizzen mast, lost during their trip down from the Galapagos islands. They too were heading south to Cape Horn and Antarctica.

Valdivia is a university town and distribution centre for the surrounding area. Thus there are a number of well stocked supermarkets and several fruit and vegetable markets, including a colourful daily market -- also the main fish market -- on the riverside in the centre of the city near the bridge. It is also a great tourist centre and launch tours on the river, including the River Cruces, are very popular. There is an excellent long distance bus service covering the rest of Chile, and it is well worth taking the time to visit the Villarica area and the famous Lake District.

We spent seven weeks in Valdivia, unwinding after a long passage, doing the usual boat maintenance and stocking up for the trip south, but by mid November the approaching summer was in evidence and it was time to get going. We finally left on 16 November, Coryn's birthday. The wind was from the northwest so we stayed offshore down the side of Isla Chiloe, and then further south for a nice long run of 400 miles to the Puerto Refugio area and the snug anchorage in Caleta Canaveral. Here we were pinned down as a 956 low swept across the Drake Passage, producing strong west winds and buckets of rain all along the south coast of Chile. Caleta Suarez was our next stop, where we sat out another low and waited for favourable weather to make the eighty mile trip to the other side of the Gulf of Pe¤as (the Gulf of Sorrow).

This gulf deserves considerable respect, particularly when crossing it from north to south. The bay is shallow and frequently subjected to cross-swells that can kick up a very nasty sea. The most logical timing of a crossing is to leave Bahia San Andres shortly after the passage of a warm front with the wind from north or northwest. It is a sixty mile passage from Raper lighthouse to San Pedro lighthouse at the entrance to the Messier channel, and we wanted to time it so as to approach the Messier channel in daylight. Although the entrance is five miles wide there is considerable foul ground to the northwest of San Pedro lighthouse, and any error in navigation would be disastrous. Furthermore, if the tide is ebbing out of the channel the seas in the entrance can be very confused. In the event, we made the crossing in twelve hours in a howling northerly force 6-7 with driving rain.

The passage south down the Chilean channel system is relatively easy -- a lot easier than coming north. The winds are typically northwest or north, and every five days or so it is necessary to hole-up for a passing depression. The weather improves as the days get longer, and the scenery becomes more spectacular with each passing day. With clear weather the final 150 miles from Brecknock along the Ballenero, O'Brien and Beagle channels to Puerto Williams is arguably the most magnificent waterway in the world. To the north is the mountain spine of Tierra del Fuego, including the granite and ice ramparts of the Cordillera Darwin. Seven glaciers tumble down the slopes, several of them all the way to tidewater. To the south are a series of mountainous islands, the last remnants of the Andes, and beyond them, to the southeast, is Cape Horn.

We spent Christmas in Caleta Olla, fifty miles west of Puerto Williams. It is one of the few anchorages in the channels with a beach. Snugged down behind the heavily forested shore we indulged in the customary Christmas activities. Out came hoarded goodies, hidden presents and miniature decorations. We even did the traditional after-dinner jigsaw with Sabine and Manie off Birabe, who we had meet down there on our previous visit in 1993.

Ayesha arrived in Puerto Williams in early January and we decided to sail to Cape Horn together, meeting again in Antarctica where Taonui could act as icebreaker. We were blown away on our first attempt to visit the Horn, but two days later we motored around Cape Horn island in calm winds. The two-man station on Cape Horn is well worth a visit, and there are a number of monuments and plaques commemorating the sailors who lost their lives in this, the `uttermost south', as it was known in the 1700s.

We left for Antarctica on 19 January with the prospect of a good weather window -- the next low was two days away. A front had just passed, and we had to motor in sloppy seas for the first six hours until the wind built from the north. Then we took off with deeply-reefed main and jib, wing and wing, bouncing along with a big cross-swell from the west. The wind continued to strengthen and shifted to north-northwest, and by the morning of 21 January we were under bare poles and running fast with about 45 knots of wind. However that evening the barometer started to rise, and the wind lightened and shifted northeast. Crossing 60S we had the shock of seeing the required course on the GPS suddenly change from 155° to 169°, and discovered the Raytheon GPS was not programmed for variation south of 60°S!

Next day the shaft of the Monitor self-steering broke with the end jammed in the latch mechanism. Thankfully we had a spare latch and shaft, but it wasn't much fun replacing it in those cold, bouncy seas. We arrived at the Melchoir islands, 515 miles from Cape Horn, at 1800 on 23 January. It is like no other place on earth. The only land is around the tide water mark -- above that is ice. Navigation was difficult as grounded icebergs look like islands, particularly in the mist that accompanies warm weather. Ayesha arrived the next morning, having drifted south hove-to during the night so as to enter in daylight. We anchored, with lines ashore, in a narrow slot between two islands, but moved when the huge serac overhanging the opposite side seemed to be threatening to break off in the warm weather.

As the weather brightened we beat north up the Gerlache Strait to Enterprise Island, where we tied to an old, half-submerged whaling ship. We awoke to five inches of snow on the deck with drizzle and fog, but the low passed next day and we headed south. It was a month before the time of maximum ice break-up and the seas were clear. At the old British Antarctica Survey (BAS) base on Danco Island we found a colony of 50,000 gentoo penguins (the count of an Argentina biologist team there for the summer). Just to the south is Paradise Harbour, a curving waterway of breathtaking splendour on a brilliant sunny day. Huge icebergs, black craggy granite peaks and tumbling glaciers left us open-mouthed and feeling most fortunate and privileged.

Our next stop was Port Lockroy, one of the safest anchorages in the area and for many years a BAS base. Several chartered Russian ice-breakers visited Lockroy while we were there and invited the crews of the four yachts at anchor aboard for drinks and showers. By 7 February we were at Faraday, which until 1996 was the major BAS base in Antarctica. Much of the operation was moved further south to Rothera, and Faraday was sold to the Ukraine and renamed Vernadsky. The `British pub' style bar is still there, but no British beer. The Ukrainians could not have been more hospitable and the showers were superb.

We had hoped to get as far south as Rothera at the northern end of Marguerite Bay. The safest route is through a narrow pass known as the Gullet, between the mainland and offlying islands, but this is usually blocked with ice until late in the summer. The alternative is to sail around the outside and back in through a mass of poorly charted islands. As we motored south the ice flows became thicker and route-finding from the spreaders was often necessary. We spent a very long day covering the sixty miles to Mutton Cove, arriving late at night and rafting up to a cliff face. That night a storm blew over and in the morning there was six inches of snow on the decks. We stayed holed-up for three days as the wind whistled and the sleet flew, only thirty miles from the Antarctic Circle. Two other yachts had recently made it across the Circle but found the anchorages north of the Gullet to be unsafe with ice. The Gullet itself was still locked in pack ice. The weatherfax showed a good window for the now much longer return trip to Cape Horn, so with reluctance we said goodbye to Antarctica -- goodbye to the whales, the seals, the penguins, the magnificent scenery and the peace and quiet -- and headed north.

All went well for three days until, with 200 miles to go, the front of the next low reached our longitude, the wind went into the north and increased to force 6-7. We were hard on the wind and having a very rough ride under staysail and triple-reefed main -- the Drake Passage was not going to let us go without a pasting. Ayesha was further south and in stronger winds that threatened to blow her past Staten Island, as she was forced to heave-to until the wind eased into the northwest. We were more than glad to get into the shelter of the islands to the north of Cape Horn and then make our way back to Puerto Williams.

Our plan was to sail north to Buenos Aires and leave Taonui in one of the excellent Argentinian yacht clubs for the winter, but then we got caught in a storm about 200 miles north of Staten Island. We have since learned that the shallow water (less than 100 metres at eighty miles offshore) and the strong currents and tidal flows can set up very unusual seas. We had been comfortably lying a-hull in reasonable conditions for the last part of the night of 2 April, waiting for the wind to drop, when an abnormal wave picked the boat up and threw her down in a 170° knockdown. The mast broke and some deck structures were badly bent. To cut a long story short, we motored another 200 miles north but, due to water in the fuel pump, had to be towed the last forty miles to Puerto Rawson. It turned out to be cheaper to send the boat by freighter to the UK for repairs than to take her to Buenos Airies where all imported yacht equipment costs at least twice the UK price -- not a great way to end a wonderful and very satisfying trip.

Now we are safely home in Victoria, and Taonui is back in Lymington being readied for another trip next spring.

PS: We didn't see any flying fish south of 20°S.

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