Escape Adventures 15 April 2013:
We were without internet for a couple of days so I'll try to catch up now that we have it back.  Much to my chagrin, I've had to make some major changes to my itinerary plans.  I figured we had only about two weeks of sailing left down south because of the approaching winter and the Chilean Navy forecast, which is usually pretty good shows two huge storms right off the coast of where we wanted to go.  One is just a couple days out and the other is three days behind that and each one lasts about three days.
Here's a picture of the weather pattern we were looking at a couple days ago when we had to make the decision.

So, as the Captain of the boat, I had to decide what was best for my crew, the boat, and myself.  Being pretty inexperienced, I decided to not go south, but rather to finish fixing the few nagging things on the boat that need to be fixed before setting out on any long journey.  Our freezer, for example, gets plenty cold to freeze stuff right next to the cold plate, but a foot or two away, it's 8 degrees warmer and our frozen pizzas that we were storing up for the long trip are kind of limber.  So, Alwoplast is adding a channel in the freezer for the fan to better circulate the cold air when the compressor is running.  We'll have that fixed tomorrow.  The awning maker came by today with the cockpit awning and the awning that goes on the back deck.  They look great, but need a couple of adjustments so they fit tight.  Anyway, we think it's prudent to get all of those things fixed while we're still right here in port with the excellent support from Alwoplast, before we head out on a longer adventure.  Once all of these things are fixed, we will sail locally for a week or so and then head out.

We now have the SSB radio working very well.  Last night I was able to download a bunch of e-mails, a weather fax, and some other information we needed even though we didn't have Wi Fi.  I could transmit and receive both over the Chilean stations and one in Panama.  So, I think we can put the SSB issues behind us.  One of the guys who has been very helpful in solving these issues is John Yeamans, who lives on a boat just two berths down the dock from us.  John has been sailing for 40 years and knows a tremendous amount about electronic things as well as sailing.  He's been very helpful in teaching us how to use the SSB radio and how to get e-mails and weather reports.  He also helped us install a program for getting tides all over the world.  He's also been sailing with us and teaching us how to use our radars.  Here's a picture of John with an apparatus he made up from capacitors and other parts he had on his boat to reduce the RF noise on our SSB.  That thing worked great and significantly improved the performance of our SSB radio.

I had a couple more pictures of our trip up the Valdivia River towards Valdivia that I wasn't able to send in my last post so I'm including them here.  It's very scenic here as you can see and the people are very friendly.  There's quite a bit of industry along the river banks.  One area we passed was making wood chips from the local trees and loading them onto ships, I think bound for China.

We continue to eat like kings on the boat.  Sometimes we don't know for sure what we're buying in the grocery store because we don't speak very good Spanish, but when we get it back on the boat Jay is able to make something good out of it.  In this picture, he cut an avocado in half, baked it, and put scrambled eggs with ham and peppers in it.  It was delicious.  

I'm really a breakfast person and like to make pancakes, bacon and eggs for breakfast.  But you can't buy Busquick here in Chile so you have to make it from flour, baking powder, baking soda, etc.  We're still trying to find the ingredients.  You also can't find the nice neat packages of bacon like we have in every supermarket or 7-11 in the US.  A couple days ago we saw this big piece of pork belly that looked a lot like bacon, so I bought it, brought it back to the boat and sliced it up.  We decided to fry up a few pieces to see what it tasted like.  It was kind of like strips of pork chops—very good, but not bacon.  Jay said, it just wasn't cured so he rubbed rock salt into it and we're letting it cure in the refrigerator now.  Here's a picture of the sliced "bacon" and of Jay rubbing in the salt.

A couple days ago, I was still busy preparing for our departure to head south.  In this next picture I was rolling up one of the lines we intend to feed off of reels on the back of the boat to tie the aft end to shore in those places where we need to anchor very close to shore because in the fiords the depth drops off very rapidly.  Consequently, you have to anchor close to shore and keep the boat oriented toward the anchor as the tide, currents, and wind change.  The tides down here are  10 to 15 meters in some areas, so you have to really pay close attention.  In the other picture we're taking on diesel, Chilean style—no big tanker truck right up to the dock.  The tanker puts it in 55 gallon drums and then these guys brought the drums out on the dock to refuel my boat.

This morning it was very foggy, as it is most mornings, and pretty cold.  It's beautiful though, and very peaceful.  Here are a couple of shots of the early morning fog as the sun begins to peak through.

In this final shot, you get to see  what I see out the window as I stand in front of the stove making breakfast each morning.  I love this place.  It's like having your own log cabin on the bank of a nice lake, but you can move your cabin whenever you get the urge for a change of scenery.

Tomorrow, Jay and I are taking a rental car south about three hours drive to pick up my wife Elaine and daughter Heather.  They flew into Puerto Montt because that's where we planned to have the boat by now.  It's only a two or three hour drive, but it takes 12-14 hours to get their by boat.  Anyway, they will be joining us here on Escape and we will take in some of the local sights while we clear up the remaining few problems and wait for a couple of things to come in from the US.  There are a lot of fantastic things to see—old forts, scenic hot springs, fiords and lakes, etc.  I will be sharing some of these with you in the next few posts as the adventure gets started in earnest.

Chan