Fin Del Mundo Chile

I didn’t post since July, more through lack of technical acumen to access my blog account than anything else, in which case my various ramblings have surfaced of FB. Much as I would like to include photos in this latest blog, the upload speed is just too slow for my level of patience so I leave it to the imagination!

Having completed the 2000 mile passage from Piriapolis to Chile I find time to stop and regroup and take stock.

Here’s my entry from this morning’s journal.

A cooler morning with a wind from the east, I light the stove, it’s early but then I did go to sleep last night at 2030. I put wood on the fire, foraged from the basin bank which is boggy and scrubby, a bed of mussels by the waterline, I feel bad to walk on them, they are without defence.

Drinking coffee from my plastic mug, I take time to reflect. There are things to be done on Aisling. I need to repair one of the mainsail sliders, it ripped out when it became caught between the mast halyard jammers and a coil of topping lift, it’s a small job but I’ll have to wait for fair weather as it involves taking half of the sail out of the slider. When it happened originally I managed to make a temporary repair, standing on the slewing deck with needle and thread as we beat our way west up the Beagle Channel, allaying my fears of the sail splitting right open under pressure. Both of the sheet winches need attention, one of them sounds particularly sick. The job involves crawling into the cockpit lockers to undo the bolts to remove the winch so I’m not chomping at the bit on that one, it will come in the days to follow.

Puerto Williams is what from the sea appears to be a small settlement of single story prefabs nestling into the green foliage of the foot hills of the snowy mountains behind. It is a Chilean naval base with a full compliment of naval personnel and paraphernalia, including a couple of gun boats sitting alongside.

It is a curious picture of old and new, as I walk the streets I am struck by the sense of the practical in the absence of the aesthetic. The small bungalow type dwellings vary in age and condition. They each have a plot with enough space to park a car or two with plenty of room for more. It’s messy, wood and steel are strewn in rough piles, dead cars and falling down sheds, piles of rope and chain, some old sections of steel flue pipe, perhaps a dog on a chain, its tawny shades standing out form the more subdued colours of human detritus. A constant at every house is a pile of chopped logs and a couple of large gas cylinders. This is a settlement where heat is king, sheltering from the winds that tear through from the south, every house has a stainless steel chimney emerging from its shallow pitched roof.

And in amongst the vaguely orderly sprawl, new buildings are going up, modern day prefabs of steel and plywood characterised by two stories and angles and curves, a busy hive of orange clad workers with hard hats and cigarettes, cutting, chopping, carrying, climbing, the blare of a stereo, the march of development pursues it’s path dragging everyone along as it goes.

I walk through a square, “Abuelo Felipe” and having learned that it was a public holiday I understand why there is such a vacant and quiet air. Closed tourist shops selling T shirts and mugs, a small provisions store, a cafe, a hardware shop. All carry the sense of subdued slumber, like eyelids almost closed, consciousness barely ticking over. And in the square there is a billboard that depicts a scene of a Yanama woman and her family in a traditional dugout canoe. Her hair is frizzy and her eyes are wilder still. As if planted from another plant, I cannot help but look up at this sign and reflect upon the dark unpalatable irony, that where before, a native people lived naturally and in harmony with the earth, the Europeans arrived with their unique potion of genocide in exchange for hard cash and resources, literally wiping out the native tribes, a world wide phenomenon. and all that is left as some kind of sick joke, is this token, surrounded by concrete and plate glass with a lurid bright pink fascia and tacky plastic mementos of a civilisation lost…

I walk through a narrow passage, two guys come the other way. A brief encounter with shiny skin, aftershave and a whiff of something minty. These hallmarks of a world that I have been away from bring sharply into focus a sense of security in the familiar. Two children playing in the lane, one kicking a ball, the other on her bike, healthy looking with rounded cheeks and dark hair, a community that is doing okay by anyone’s standards, reinforced by the plethora of new 4x4s that growl along the dusty tracks, concrete and tarmac have yet to arrive here, but I’m sure they will.

The supermarket, there are several, where a handful of people meander and chat and the girl at the till looks bored. I peruse the shelves for long term provisions suitable for voyaging, rice, chick peas, porridge, coffee and my new luxury discovery, condensed milk, which I put in my tea and in this climate it never goes off. There are currently 846 Chilean Pesos to the Pound Sterling. Hence everything is priced in thousands. There is something a little incongruent about paying a thousand of anything for a small chocolate bar, and with peanut butter at 4,000 and real coffee at 10,000, I may have to bite the bullet, these are items I cannot do without!

When I was small I remember when the snow used to come. Especially at night, with a thick layer of white. Mist of all I remember the acoustics. The complete absorption of all sound into the ether, the sense of something special and magical, an air of mysterious expectancy that was almost tangible, like someone twiddled the knobs of contrast and saturation and all of the picture changed for a while. That’s exactly my experience here. Mountain peaks, whitened, look over majestically, impassively, they invade the place. I’m certain that after a week or so, they will recede into the offing but for now they are like a giant hand that holds us here, down by the watery edge. Maternal and paternal in their nature they exude such a force of presence, a heart beating in the stillness, so ancient yet so alive. My memories of childhood are revived, I cannot explain it in any other way, but I feel it strongly.

Today an Easterly blows, a rare thing in these parts and a good wind to head west. I prefer to stay on the mooring rather than join the rafting community alongside the grounded steamship, “Micalvi”, a German freighter built in 1924, ending up here and run aground to provide a quay for local craft, it has now become a yacht club, at the moment it is very quiet. I spent a year on a mooring in Devon and I like to have the solitude when I can.

Today an easy day, to potter, clean rest up, maybe wander into the town armed with laundry, and sit by the fire and listen to the wind, enjoy the peace, enjoy the stillness.