Gig Harbor, Bremerton, Seattle

Mark and Henry Having Fun with Sculpture


Jellyfish Passing By, Bell Street Marina, Seattle


Tacoma Narrows Bridge with New Span

To Gig Harbor, a very fast ride under "Galloping Gertie" Tacoma Narrows Bridge. We hit 11.4 knots just north of the two spans, tying up at Arabella's Marina by 11am. We heard a rare VHF Coast Guard radio weather warning and rode out high winds and seas at dock, not on the water, thank goodness. Henry's burger and my oysters at the Tides Tavern were up to snuff.

About 10:30 am Thursday, we headed north through Colvos Passage, usually a sleepy slog to Blake Island. However, the current was running unusually high again and we rode the tidal stream at 8-9 knots all the way north. When we reached the marina at Blake Island, a state park, the docks were full up with huge yachts. They installed power on the docks last fall and so it is a more desirable destination. Gone are the small family boats with kids and fishing poles. The new order is white fiberglass walls on all sides. We met our friends outside the marina and continued on with them to Bremerton for the night.

Bremerton is famous for its naval shipyard. The waterfront has undergone quite a bit of development in recent years but the blue collar essence of the place remains. The new marina is lovely and it has bargain docking rates. However, our friends, Phil and Ann, were assigned a slip close in and ran aground as they tried to dock. We stood off for awhile and then docked several slips farther out. The afternoon and evening were spent catching up with them. Their two adventures--sailing from Palau to Australia, and boating with friends in Alaska (with a medical emergency, to boot) provided most of the entertainment. Stories became more exciting in the telling, and retelling with more details and expression.

Friday morning was an easy, motoring to Seattle. No wind, no current, so no sailing. We spent some time trying to solve a water problem, but it remains a mystery. We met another friend, Mark, yesterday for a long walk on the waterfront north of Bell Harbor and through the Seattle Art Museam outdoor sculpture park. We had Avignon sausages from the Pike Place Market for dinner aboard Jules last night. Here at Bell Harbor Marina is the embarkation point for cruise ships of the Norwegian fleet. The Norwegian Star left yesterday afternoon, and the Norwegian Pearl is here this morning. Today, it's off to Kingston and crepes for breakfast in the morning.

Sailing North from Olympia

State Capitol, Olympia, Washington from Budd Bay at Dawn

View of Monkey Face from Misery Ridge Trail, Smith Rock State Park, Oregon.

From the high desert of Eagle Crest, Oregon, in the last week we've spent some time at Little Whale Cove and the whales are back. On Sunday we packed up the car with the inflatable raft, the Yamaha outboard motor, and a summer's worth of reading and headed to Olympia, Washington where Jules, our 30-foot Newport sailboat, has been resting since last October, weathering drenching winter rains.

About 5am tomorrow morning the tide will turn, and the ebbing current will carry us under the Tacoma Narrows bridge to Gig Harbor. We are at the summer solstice and the tidal change is about 18-19 ft here. The "low low" tide today put the ramp to the docks at an impossibly steep slope.

Since Sunday afternoon we've been cleaning, provisioning, repairing, and arranging. In such a small space everything must have a place. Not too many clothes, not too much food, not too much equipment, but we never have enough gadgets. We hope we have not forgotten something critical. Even though we will be in towns almost every night for awhile, it's difficult to get some things without the convenience of a car. We still have things to do--replace the main sheet, replace the line for the whisker pole, replace a stretch of lifeline, clean the sunbrella canvas dodger,and wonder whether it will rain tomorrow. But we have fresh local strawberries aboard, so we won't complain even if some tasks don't get done before we leave, but later.

"Low low" tide will be about noon in Gig Harbor tomorrow. We should arrive well ahead of that time. We'll tie up at Arabella's marina, take a walk, and have burgers at the Tides Tavern for dinner.

Argentina and Chile Slide Show

Look in the column on the right side of the page. See an item called "Slideshow." Click on the photo there to go to my Picasa slideshow of 500 photos (and a few videos). You can pause or stop the slideshow by passing your cursor over the lower part of the screen to see the controls. I hope you enjoy the photos!

Valparaiso and Home

Ascensor ArtilleriaMural Art

From sunset at Puerto Montt, it's two nights and a full day at sea heading north with the current to Valparaiso. At dawn on the second day we are at rest on the dock and, after one last lovely breakfast, we disembark. It's Easter Sunday and the weather holds.

A taxi ride to our prearranged lodging, Casa 199, and we are off to explore the city. Many businesses are closed, so we walk down the hill to buy water and to have lunch. Henry is convinced the area is not safe, Beth thinks we're being followed, and we climb the hill again. Our immediate area, next to the Ascensor Artilleria, has arts and crafts booths along a promenade, and a couple of eateries. When we walk beyond, we see old beautiful mansions in need of repair, much more modest housing and businesses in between, and a beautiful old church. We stop by a bakery and sample some empanadas. While we are walking back, three policemen on motorcycles follow us, then warn us to keep our cameras out of sight and to guard our bags. Our room has a view at Casa 199. Our seafood dinner close by is delightful. Arrangements are made for an all day walking tour the next day with Michael.

Breakfast includes fresh orange juice on the patio. We see men and women riding the old funicular down to the buses and to work. Michael meets us with several other tour participants and we begin our tour through the neighborhoods we walked the day before, and then beyond. He convinces us that a knowledgeable guide can offer much insight and history to what we see. And, we experience much more than we would have on our own--lunch at the German volunteer fire department, the old stock exchange, and buildings, businesses, houses, and people. We encounter his friend, a church caretaker, who plays us an impromptu tune on his horn right there in the street. Mural artworks painted on building walls were the most fun.

The following morning Henry and I depart for the Santiago airport, having missed seeing Pablo Neruda's famous house. That is left for Beth and Allen, as well as all the other places they will see as they continue north, and we fly home.

Of Lakes and Volcanoes

Our last stop before Valparaiso is Puerto Montt. We have reserved space for the Lake Esmeralda and Petrohue Falls 8-hour bus tour.

The bus leaves town immediately in the misty morning. We hope that the weather clears, and it does. The hilly lush green region was settled in 1853 when the Chilean government invited German colonists to come here. The style of the older homes, churches, and farms we pass certainly reflect that influence. When we reach Lake Esmeralda (or Lake Todos Los Santos) in the Perez Rosales National Park, we spend an hour in the sunshine on a large catamaran tour boat. As the clouds gradually reveal the peaks of the Osorno Volcano, another spectacular peak, and the Calbuco Volcano, we soak up as much of the scenery as we can in that brief period with our minds and our cameras.

Then it's on to the Petrohue River and Falls. We believe that another tour will raft a section of that class 3-4 river. From the road, it looks like it would be quite an exciting ride. At the Petrohue Falls area, we have another too brief period of time to walk amid scores of other tourists to see the wild rushing water from Esmeralda Lake fall into the Petrohue River. It is a beautiful sight, but difficult to enjoy such a limited area with so many others. Again, we rely on photographs to enjoy later. We have been instructed to return to the bus early so we can be the first bus to arrive for lunch at a farm overlooking Lake Llanquihue and the Osorno Volcano. There at the farm we sit down for a delightful lunch complete with white and red Chilean wine. We have plenty of time here to stroll, observe hummingbirds, rheas and llamas, and watch children playing.

Then it's on to Puerto Varas on Lake Llanquihue to do a little walking and shopping before returning to the ship. It's Good Friday, a local holiday, and all of Puerto Varas is out enjoying the weather. Roses are still blooming and kids are swimming in the lake, though it is fall. We never did see much of Puerto Montt.

Puerto Chacabuco and Chilean Fjords

I've been interested in the many varieties of trees and plants in South America. Two stand out and they're present here in Chacabuco.

The leaves of Araucaria evergreen trees are pointed and razor sharp. We've seen two varieties in South America. Here in Chacabuco we see the Araucaria araucana or "umbrella tree." The term "umbrella" describe the mature appearance of these trees, after they lose their lower limbs. Araucaria araucana is also widely known as the monkey puzzle tree. It was so named by an Englishman who thought it would be quite a puzzle for a monkey to figure out how to climb this tree. Araucaria trees have edible seeds similar to pine nuts which are harvested, somehow, around the sharp leaves.

Gunnera sp. is a giant rhubarb-like plant which grows wild in Chacabuco. We had seen it last summer in a garden outside a Pender Harbour pub in BC, Canada and we were amazed by its enormous highly indented leaves and its interesting flower stalks. I read that the base of the leaves is home to nitrogen-fixing bacteria which live in an unusual symbiotic relationship with the plant. The bacteria allow Gunnera to grow in soils poor in nitrogen. This is a unique adaptation of this genus. The stalks can be eaten raw in salads.

Chacabuco is on the Aisen Fjord at the 45th parallel, like our home in Depoe Bay, Oregon in the northern hemisphere. This port is a center for the salmon fishery in Chile. There is a large fish processing plant here and the fish seem to be loaded directly into big refrigerated shipping containers to be sent off to markets abroad. Salmon aquaculture is also prevalent in the Chilean fjords. It is a busy place for tourism, too. It's wet and rugged and home to the Rio Simpson National Reserve.

The Chilean fjords remind us very much of the Canadian waters we sail in summer, especially Desolation Sound. The farther north we go, the calmer the waters become, and gradually we see more fishing boats. At the 41st latitude, the Pacific West Wind Drift current meets South America and splits. The Humboldt Current runs north and the Cape Horn Current runs south. Tides in the fjords can range 24 feet. The Aisen Fjord connects to the Moreleda Channel as we travel north from Chacabuco.

Strait of Magellan

Lonely reaches of the Strait of Magellan.

Painted Selk'nam people, who lived in the interior of Tierra del Fuego.


The Strait of Magellan is a difficult 350 mile passage, but safer than the Drake Passage between Cape Horn and Antarctica. This route was discovered in 1520 by Ferdinand Magellan on his voyage to find the Spice Islands of Indonesia. Until the Panama Canal was completed in 1914, the Strait was the main route for steam ships between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The Strait separates the mainland of South America and the Isla Grande of Tierra del Fuego and has been controlled by Chile since 1843. Along its remote empty miles we imagine the loneliness and self-sufficiency of long ago crews and ships.

Punta Arenas ("sandy point"), a center of commerce where forests and plains converge on the north side of the Strait, was founded in 1848. The immigrants were Spanish and Croatian. We walk up from the tender dock and along 21 de Mayo avenue to the main square. There is an information building in the square and there is a small market of booths selling handcrafted woolen items and jewelry. Vendors display deep blue lapis lazuli stones set in silver. There are earrings and necklaces. In Argentina, the national stone rhodochrosite (rose colored manganese carbonate) is cut, polished, set, and sold in much the same way.

Pan pipe music filters through the trees and we cross the square past the monument of Ferdinand Magellan on our way to the Sara Braun Palace. This grand old mansion is a museum, a hotel, and a restaurant. It is here that Henry discovers delicious chupe, the Chilean national dish. Then, after lunch, we find the Braun Menendez house, another museum displaying the households of the powerful early families in this community. The wealth of these families accrued from sheep production and control of about 10,000 sq km in southern Chile and Argentina. Unique to this mansion, is the open downstairs (basement) servant work areas and living quarters. After the Panama Canal was completed, commerce slowed considerably here in Punta Arenas.

Back in the square we note the bronze of the native Patagon at the base of Magellan's statue. His foot is brightly polished. Legend has it that those kissing that foot will return. Later we venture inside the Catholic church. We admire its enormous mosaic of Jesus's face above the altar and life-size statue of the beautiful St. Teresa of the Andes just inside the door. Walking back to the port area, a group of school-age young men in blazers and ties races past us to the intersection. They laugh and joke with all the exuberance of their youth.