Back at the helm - sailing the Yaghan to Antarctica, Patagonia and the South Pacific by Martensson Helene & Martensson Arne

Author:Martensson, Helene & Martensson, Arne [Martensson, Helene]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sailing the Yaghan to Antartica, Patagonia and the South Pacific
Published: 2010-05-19T22:00:00+00:00

Puerto Williams

After we had finished provisioning, we went to Puerto Williams in Chile to clear in and wait for fair weather so we could set sail for Antarctica. Puerto Williams is a tiny community, and there is not much you can buy there. This is why you always need to stock up at Ushuaia. You must enter Chile in order to use the best waterways around Cape Horn. You apply for permission to sail to Antarctica back home. Before we left, we were granted permission by the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat after supplying an environmental impact report and a detailed account of why we wanted to visit Antarctica. Regulations vary greatly from one country to another.

We travelled the twenty nautical miles to Puerto Williams on December 15. It was great to be back. It looked exactly the way it did twelve years ago. You moor at the Micalvi Yacht Club – the world's southernmost yacht club. The club house is a sunken German ship that was once a ferry on the Rhine. The harbour is the best sheltered harbour this end of the Beagle Channel. You can lie there safely in any weather. The snowy peaks that surround the sheltered basin make it a lovely harbour. I noticed there were more boats now than twelve years ago, despite the fact that we had arrived early in the season. The harbour was now clearly too small during the peak period, which occurs in January and February.

We checked in and began to study the weather forecast. Our preparations included baking bread and buns as well as making a number of tasty meals for the crossing. There was a feeling of nervous expectation in the air. We were setting off on the great adventure of our lives, and there was no going back now. We had read about Drake Passage and Antarctica, and obviously we were a little tense and anxious. These are certainly waters you need to approach with respect, and we did. We also took out a printed chart of Antarctica that we had bought before leaving Sweden. There are two electronic chart systems on Yaghan, Transas and C-map. Transas is the one we use most, normally for plotting. C-map is a backup. Since Transas is also used by commercial traffic, it is normally the best one. Sometimes, however, it is not good enough, for example when you get to places where only leisure boats go, in which case C-map is the better option. These two systems complement each other. Even before we left, we noticed that neither system functioned well in the Antarctic. Down there we would be needing printed charts issued both by the British Admiralty and Chile. We now had two electronic systems as well as printed charts covering the area. We hoped that it would be sufficient for finding the places we wanted to go to.

We soon ascertained that December 20 would be a good day to sail. The SPOS showed a maximum wind speed of 21 knots, a significant wave height of 2.

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