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February 8, 2010 – At Sea, 43º 48’S, 073º 41’W
By Herb McCormick
Today, skipper Mark Schrader’s personal log doubles as the crew log, with this tale of Chilean canals and near misses:
I ended my log yesterday saying I was happy to enter a canal named Darwin, and I was. It was what Darwin happened to be connected to—I’m talking channels here, not science—that didn’t work out so well.
As a channel, even as darkness descended on Ocean Watch, Darwin was pretty much everything one might expect it to be. It hosted a variety of features; wide, narrow, bold, interesting, curvy waterways with dozens of little islands growing like pansies around hills and mountains rising right out of the sea. In other words, it was an enjoyable experience and a very nice follow-up after a not-so-comfortable day.
Canal Darwin connects the “outside” Roaring Forties ocean with a parallel but sheltered inside channel named Canal Moraleda. Since Moraleda runs pretty much north and south it is subject to some pretty strong weather conditions if the wind is blowing from one end or the other. Here’s what our trusty nautical guide by Rolfo and Ardrizzi had to say:
“As in all large channels, navigation can be seriously uncomfortable and even impossible in strong contrary winds. A 15 to 20 knot northerly is enough to raise a 1-metre chop with a very short period that, working together with a contrary current, makes for painful sailing.”
Hello—as we entered Canal Moraleda with a contrary current the wind slowly veered to the north and began to increase. For the rest of the night and morning with each mile we managed to log forward the wind seemed to take offense and offered more resistance. By midnight progress was slow; by 0300 the wind was clearly raising the stakes and by 0600 in 30 knots of breeze we were just able to stay even with a marker on the shore. Our late night and early morning watches seemed long, and would have been more so had it not been for some other large shipping traffic going both directions with expectations of sharing the narrow channel.
Just before dawn David T. and Horacio Rosell noticed a vessel slowly overtaking us. A quick check of the radar screen confirmed the situation. Sailboats are sometimes difficult to see at night so the prudent thing to do is to make yourself very visible and establish radio contact. You might recall a close call we had in the Labrador Sea in just such a situation, so I asked Horacio to make VHF contact with the other vessel, just to make sure he knew where we were.
All was confirmed by voice and after a few miles the vessel was passing us about hundred yards off of our starboard beam. As David and I watched the ship gain ground on us it suddenly seemed as if it was getting closer. Before we had time to voice any further concern, and for some inexplicable reason, the vessel turned directly toward us. For an instant we were looking directly at the bow of a large boat on an immediate collision course with Ocean Watch. I reached for the throttle as David spun the autopilot control to port. Before OW could react to the changes the ship passed less than a boat length behind us—and kept going in that direction until it disappeared from view.
It was a very, very near miss. Horacio immediately picked up the VHF and uttered some Spanish words new to us but no doubt worthy of adding to our vocabulary in case this happens again. We heard no response from the mystery boat. Other than to always expect the unexpected, it’s hard to know what other precautions we could have taken. The boat had us in view, confirmed it by radio and then decided on a course of action that put everyone in jeopardy. Go figure, if they were trying to convince me of their stupidity, they did.
Soon after that incident we left the main channel, spent the day winding around more protected and smaller waterways and enjoyed less wind and more miles. At the moment we’re crossing the last open body of water, Golfo Corcavado, a 30-mile stretch, leading us to the final approach to Puerto Montt, ETA late on the 9th or early on the 10th.
I’m happy to report, all are well aboard Ocean Watch.
-Herb McCormick and Mark Schrader with photographs by David Thoreson
*This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos
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