Sailing Aboard Schooner Motu: Always the Weather

Sunrise in the Gulf of Ancud

April 25, 2017

As the saying goes, "bad weather rules" in Southern Chile, and once again we have found this to be the case. We mentioned in the last blog that we have had almost incredibly good weather for the motor-sail from the Cabo de Hornos area to Marina Quinched, Chiloe, which is about 180 miles from our winter destination of Alwoplast Boatyard outside of Valdivia. How things change.

We've been here a week now and have been able to take advantage of the off-season rates at this nice little Chilean marina located on Chiloe Island, near the city of Castro. Unfortunately, the weather has been terrible for going to Valdivia. We appear to be in the near center of a big high which funnels the winds of depressions sweeping across the Pacific from the west. The boat is quite secure here but the wind can howl.

We need just a two day weather window to be able to get through the infamous Chacao Canal where the currents can run around eight knots and create huge seas if wind is against the current. Big ships respect this canal. We then need a further 24 hours to go the 120 n miles out in the Pacific up to river system of Valdivia.

The area is really our first re-introduction to "civilization" since the small town of Puerto Williams or perhaps the villages of Puerto Eden and Aguirre. Castro has people, hotels, restaurants, super-markets and of great importance, hardware stores. We mention the latter since yesterday the welds broke on the dinghy davits and the whole contraption including antennas, lights, solar panels, and, of course, the dinghy almost ended up in the drink. Of course, if we had to have this failure, we are more than pleased it occurred here at the dock, near a big city.

Tomorrow we will walk 5 km down the country road from the marina and then take the bus into Castro, where we will hunt down stainless u-bolts as a quick fix for where the welds failed. When we get to Valdivia, we will look at a more permanent and stronger fix.

We understand why people say cruising is being able to work on your boat in exotic places.

People who read the blog mention they want more pictures of Southern Chile so here goes: