When I woke up in the morning and tried to clear my weary head, the low grey
nimbostratus cloud that hung over Punta Arenas didn't help much.
I don't often sleep well before any major passage, so being awake at 5 am
was nothing unusual, kettle on for a good tea, scrub the old toothy pegs and
onto the computer to see what the weather was really going to give us this
departure day.
The more I look and understand weather, the more I realize how much I really
don't understand, its one of those conundrums which you just have to learn
to live with when it comes to weather, because its so much greater and more
complex than anything that one person can pretend to understand, the
variables are immense.
The one thing I did see was that a newly formed low had set itself up on the
west coast of Chile, WNW of our position, and even though there was an
indication of a small system being there 24 hours ago, this new satellite
image looked imposing.
We had arranged yesterday in the blaze of warm sunlight and the fare well
fan fair of the Tall Ships leaving Punta Arenas for immigrations and the
naval Armada to come to Xplore and do final clearance for us at 8.30am, the
town had been enraptured with all these amazing sailing machines in port,
and we had received so many comments that it was sad that Xplore couldn't
continue with the fleet.
I turned on the boat electronics for departure, and within seconds the radio
squawked with the words Xplore Xplore. After a brief conversation it seemed
that the navy wanted us to to their office instead of them visiting us
(grey rainy day, no wonder !! ) so we all grabbed our jackets, and me with
the boat documents we jumped onto the dock, but there on the dock was the
immigrations chap !! back on board we quickly did his paper work and once
again jumped back off, and made a run for the navy office as we were now
going to be late !
With the change of the main port dock it now takes a bit longer to get out,
even the local dogs which are always hanging around haven't worked out the
new escape routes. Finally at the navy office, a bit wet I open my bag to
get the boat clearance papers finally stamped and we were told by the
officer at the desk that the clearance team was there at Xplore on the dock
! well my damp head started to steam at this point, a few words under my
breath and off we choofed again back to the boat.
There to greet us at the boat were two uniformed staff of the navy both
shaking their heads and saying what a mess up this had all been. I only
needed three signatures from them and we were all done, so what was meant to
be a smooth start to the morning and voyage was all turned upside down and a
bit of a kerfuddle.
A light southerly had already started as we threw off our connections with
land, 1300 nautical miles would see us reach Piriapolis in Uruguay, the only
things between us being the Striates of Magellan and the South Atlantic
ocean.
The Striates of Magellan is a place that I am very careful, weather and the
currents around here are unpredictable at best. Its about 100 nautical miles
to the east from Punta Arenas to the opening into the Atlantic Ocean, there
are two narrows which bottle neck the striates which give currents up to 9
knots in both flood and ebb tides, this means that if you want to travel non
stop through this stretch the you have to endure at least one tide against
you.
9.30am we departed, by 11.30 we had 4 knots of current against us, by 12.30
that had increased to 6.5 knots, Great ! with a boat speed of 1.2 knots over
the ground we weren't going any where fast. but I knew that the most
critical
place that we wanted positive tides with us was in the narrows, so we just
had to grin and bear it, we were nearly at the start of the first narrow
and the tides were due to change around 2.30pm.
Slowly, bit by bit the currents started to ease, during the afternoon it
was painful watching it until it went to slack water, and then into
positive, now we were getting somewhere, and a hell of a lot faster. By the
time we reached the second and tightest narrow the current was really
hooting along, we all chuckled as we watched our 7 knots of boat speed
through the water get turned into 10 knots, then 12, then 14.5 and to gob
smack us all we hit 16.6 knots over the ground.
With an expected 3 to 4 hours more of current after leaving the final
narrow we had a good chance of popping out in the South Atlantic that
evening, not much else to worry about, only 15 to 20 oil rigs, passing
container ships and general commercial vessels and a couple of cross channel
ferries, all a bit like playing a pin ball machine, except we were the steel
ball.
The winds freshened and we made ground, the final point to our freedom was
Point Dungeness on the north eastern corner of Magellan, a shoal bank guards
the corner which is only good to cross close to in fair conditions, with
the wind already up to 32 knots it was touch and go if we could take this
short cut.
Just south of Dungeness the radio came to life from the navy reporting
station, who were we, how many people and where we were going, all the
normal
questions.3.6 miles from this cape I was a at the nav table and the wind
suddenly
dropped, from 32 knots it went to 18 and the boat slowed to crawling pace,
then within
seconds it all changed. As I so often see here in the south the sudden and
fierce shift
in winds on the fronts of low pressure it was all on us in seconds, the 70
degree
shift now meant we were pointing directly at Dungeness, hmmm, time for a
little action
as the sails were now flapping and Xplore wasn't a happy girl
Audrey popped her head up from sleep and we quickly put another reef in the
main sail, trimmed up the head sail and started the motor to give us better
directional
speed, this had all happened in the matter of minutes, but we had to clear
the cape.
With tide now against us, the winds hitting high 30's we crept our way along
the edge of the bank.6 miles, 3 then 2, nearly there we had already planed
out our sail plan for
when we turned the corner.
The sudden change in wind direction and strength had come 3 hours earlier
than forecast, but shit happens as they say in the classics, you just have
to deal with it.
We rounded the point and headed north, even the psychological fact that we
turned north seemed to warm me up, but it would be a few days before we felt
the heat of the north.
After 36 hours from leaving Punta Arenas we had covered over 300 nautical
miles, the Fat English girl gets along alright. That first night was a tough
one, as the seas were large and short, the winds peaked at 48 knots and it
certainly was a washing machine ride on board, not a lot of sleep was had
by anyone.
But every day is a different one, and tonight as I write, the seas have
eased some what, the skies have lifted and there are stars all around, the
boat is silent as she slips along at 8.5 knots.
Its amazing how as a sailor we so quickly forget the tough, the rough and
the cold, and revel in the golden moments that we have here at sea.
Stephen
