What Happened Next

Caleta Brecknock

It would take some real writing to get this part of the trip down.

After we left the Straits of Magellan we cut down Canal Cochrane, took the briefest look at the open Pacific, and ducked back into the protection of the canales - Canal Ocasión and Canal Brecknock - the road to the Beagle Channel.

Brecknock - see the mast?

And Brecknock again

Love that deck stack on a cold morning

Now we were in Fireland - Tierra del Fuego.  And it was our own Tierra del Fuego.  There were some centolla boats around, and every morning we came up on the Patagonia cruisers' net and emailed our position to the armada.  But we seemed to be carrying our own envelope of solitude around with us.  From anchorage to anchorage.  Through crystal day after crystal day.

Winter came in for real on our second morning in Caleta Brecknock, and it never left.

IDing something in the marine mammal field guide.  You can tell who's spending their day on deck and who's spending their day down below

We approach the whole undertaking with humility - we are confident, but we assume nothing.

We have a four-point approach: be well prepared, make good decisions, make it look easy, have a blast.

So far it's worked out.  The kids had a blast, I had a blast, Alisa had a blast.

I can't say enough about choosing winter for our first visit to the far south.  Winter makes everything lonely and mysterious, the way Patagonia should be.

And, well.  The feeling of moving through these places independently?  The feeling of choosing our pace and taking responsibility for everything?  The feeling of dreaming about a trip like this and the doing it, and finding yourself equal to it?

It's no wonder that people find the sailing life so hard to give up.