Hello everyone!
Good to be back to a see loads of rain in Portugal, the country really needs some water. Mother Nature blessed us with not only loads of rain, but with waves to a point that only breaks 2 to 3 times a year. The last two weeks we had rain and the point worked for 6 times and during these two weeks I have been busy catching up on the double hand sailing Record Attempt from Lisbon to Madeira…coming fresh from Antarctica where I have experienced live on a boat at as low as 65° S.
A four-week journey that became one of the coolest adventures of my life.
This 60 seconds clip gives you a glimpse of the first 5 days and here partial parts of my diary.
Feb 2nd – 1500UTC Ushuaia / Tierra del Fuego – Argentina
48 hours ago I received a text from a friend asking me if I was available to join a touristic expedition to the Antarctic Peninsula. I ask her a few minutes, as I needed to make sure that no other professional compromises would be compromised and luckily for me 18 hours after that conversation I started the 38 hour trip from Lisbon to Ushuaia totaling 23 hours of air time!
Tired but highly motived by the excitement of this adventure I happen to engage with two Argentinians brothers while waiting at the Buenos Aires airport. Agustín and Nicolás two humble man in their 70’s..
Two men with a good character and a strong personality that inspired me
with the 4000 Km road trip to the north of Argentina. This meaning that they will cross the country during 4 weeks.
Nicolás the youngest brother owned a colorful character. Always positive a great sense of humor and a contagious smile. It is their first time on an airplane.
Agustín seams nervous and both made me laugh loud as just after we take off Nicolás started to taking the piss out of Agustín, by saying that airplane was on a angle because the airport staff put to much weight on the back of the plane. The five hours flight in the company of these two happy dudes literally flew by and I felt blessed to have meet them.
As we arrive to the farewell part I ask them if it wasn’t a risky voyage. Nicolás quickly reply by saying that his brother was an ex boxer and his still a box trainer so they were sort out. We went on to say good bye and continued our separate journeys, mine that will take me trough the Southern Ocean, to low temperatures and the most inhospitable place in planet Earth and theirs through the Mountains, desert and northern hot weather of Argentina.
Back onboard the boat is loaded with supplies for aprox 25 days engine is on the crew debriefed….safety is not mention and I see no signs of any life jacket or harness…hmm yeh, na, maybe, I guess if you fall in these waters not much we can do, but still would prefer to have a life jacket and harness. We set sail trough the beagle canal and the views are amazing as I spotted the first penguin of the trip as he swims by us. Its getting dark and I will be on watch a few hours before the sun rises.
Later that nigh I came up to my watch and notice we have no navigation lights on. I asked around and the info I have is that their not working…hmm good thing we only have a coupe of hours of dark but still not something I appreciate and hope it get fixed but it did crossed my mind that in 20 days the nights will be longer.
As the sun comes out with the Nueva Island on our stern we start sailing across the Drake Passage. The wind increases and the waves bigger and bigger as I turn off the auto pilot and drive the boat for approx. 3 hours, it feels I entered a time machine and I’m back in the 80’s as we roll 5 meter swell on at 70 footer catch that was built in 1979 to race around the world.
3rd of February
Temperatures dropped and 9 out of 12 are badly sea sick I have seen Albatrosses, big dolphins with a white stripe that I have never seen it before, a dead whale and a young Orca that zoomed by us as we sail down wind in a great NE swell.
As I admire the Albatrosses I cannot stop thinking how come the small birds and I mean small as a swallows that I could not identify 250 NM away from land and in this harsh environment.
The breeze started to drop and we had to turn on the engine. After a few hours the seas started to go down, everyone starts to feel better and I see the first natural smiles onboard since we enter the Drake.
We now enter the ice Berg zone and from now on we don’t sail at night and have someone constantly looking for ice bergs and the radar on.
Around 3AM is almost completely dark and we reduce the boat speed to 2 knots to avoid any icebergs. The Captain seams insecure I notice. But I was not the only one as other people onboard seam to have feeling everyone as they comment a few things that I covered straight away, not by occulting or lying but by transmitting confidence on the boat and the captain. The captain made sure everyone knew that I’m a professional sailor and with many years of experience at a very high level at the briefing and I now have the feeling people are looking up to me whenever something happens onboard.
I know that the rig, keel and rudder are in good shape as a friend of mine was looking into buy this same boat. We had one more night onboard till we reach land in Antarctica and everything was going well till a fire started….I was ready to go on watch and stopped to clean my gopro lens when I ear: “FIRE” as I look to the galley that was on my left hand side and I see a giant flame as the chef old a big pan with a giant omelet that still liquid…egg yolk everywhere as the flame still out of control coming from the back of the stove. I dropped my gopro and notice the leak from the tube that feeds the stove and quickly ask to shut off the gaz this as I moved the stove up and down to avoid the powerfull flame to sit on spot only and set it on fire I notice the chief burned his hair, eye brows and eye laches. The situation gets under control and we explain the captain what happen as I clearly saw the flame coming from the pipe that connects to the stove. But he seamed to have a need to double check the leak even after trying to convince the him was not a good idea to search for a gas leak with a lighter…the chances to have it exploding are slim as we have a low pressure on the boat and a high pressure in the gaz pipe. he still ordered the crew to open the gas as he looked for the leak… so if that was mean to go worng at least would be on video. It all went well as you can see the fire image on the video.
Good thing all went well and the tube was replaced as we went one to have an extreme omelet… The night pass’s by and visibility in the morning is low. Dense fog is now all over us and we are around 10 NM from land. We are sailing at around 3 knots and can’t see much in front or around us. Suddenly the visibility starts to get a lot better and we spotted a small piece of ice, then another one and another and another from all deferent sizes and shapes and as the visibility became normal we spotted the first big berg of our trip. Just like that in a question of minute we went from not seeing more then 5 meters to an 360 degrees view that include rocky Islands and a big piece of ice in an immense ocean. We are now a few hours away from Deception Island a giant volcanic crater that holds one of the protected harbors in the world as the entry around 300 meters wide. We drop anchor in a bay that is actual a chamber from that giant Volcano that is still active. We spend a great night and as you can imagine the people that suffer from sea sickness could not wait to have a flat boat. We wake up the next morning and set sail to Baily’s bay the home to around 60.000 penguins that share the bay and area with sea lions, Albatrosses, Petrel’s and many other birds.
We then lift the anchor and set sail to Couverville Island.
Peace out
Pedro