Sea kayaking in Chile

"Like many other men, he was rendered wicked by misfortune." (Joseph Conrad: Set of Six)

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(This video was published 2006)

After I had finished my latest folding kayak project in autumn of 1998, I found the Gulf of Finland to be frozen solid and quite unsuitable for maritime tests. Chilean Archipelago seemed to be nearest place with ice free waters. Transporting the kayak and stuff went hassle free (via New York for 60 kilo luggage allowance), except my 150 centimeter long pack was suddenly and unexpectedly too large, and I had to pay 200 dollars extra. And of course all the flights were late/cancelled, and eventually when arriving to Santiago I was too tired to start looking for a hotel, and just continued this dull torment with 15 hours bus ride to Puerto Montt. Fellow passengers kindly propped me up to prevent me from falling to the floor. Fortunately I do not speak spanish, and I do not know what they were thinking about this particular case of drunken/drugged gringo.

In Puerto Montt I was sort of carried away to Hotel Nave, which was ok and reasonably priced also. It took me three days to recover. I found out that streets were too rough for roller skating and there were no cuban cigars nowhere, and whole city was sort of interesting looking (made of wood) but otherwise dull. And that school-girls were forced to wear short skirts probably for easy access (pray tell me any other reason).
 

Instead of hiking boots, I have got Rossignol-skates with detachable wheels. These make excellent very-rough-and-slippery terrain hiking boots, because they support ankles so well. I have made myself detachable heels for these boots, and with them they are just the best boots you can get for a professional beach-comber and sea-kayaker. ---- New York was the only place where I had any fun skating during this trip. In Manhattan they are used to skaters. Santiago was miserable, bad roads, stupid people.

It took me three weeks to reach Ancud on Chiloe Island. Very slow, but the wind was bad, and it was raining, or I was too drunk and tired. The actual travelling took only five days. The Chacao channel between the Island and Mainland can be a killer. I did not notice until afterwards, it was flat calm and flat tide when I crossed.

When in Ancud the novelty of my strange vessel was starkly revealed. Soldiers apprehended me, and I was transported to Navy headquarters for questioning. Apparently any vessel that does not float in a bathtub needs a license. I tried to point out that the actual size of my folding boat is that of a suitcase but no avail. A license for chilean coastal waters was written out with precise travel plans and radio reporting schedule and stuff, all of which I happily ignored, because I do not understand spanish. This is why nobody uses kayaks in Chile, them vessels are too long and go to same tax bracket as medium sized Finnish ice-breakers (without nuclear drive of course).

"Capitan del Embarcacion" indeed, that's me. "Captain, Sir! The harbourmaster will attend your ship and carry it into your room shortly". I could generate a ton of jokes from this.

Nothing is more revolting than a dog, any dog. Genetically engineered non beings they are, non living foul things from the pet cemetery, re-occupied by lost human souls. Dogs eat human faeces.

Several thing did I learn. The The Chilean kerosene was of harbour tug quality instead of jet plane quality. I was truly pissed & sooty with cleaning my Whisperlite camping stove every third day. After experimenting with diesel oil, I concluded that Green Gasoline is best available replacement. Worked ok for two weeks, thereafter the stove was permanently blocked, and the wire inside the fuel line was permanently stuck, and broke in half when I tried to use force and heat and anything to pull it out... I say this: Best stove for wilderness and 3rd world countries would be one that burns natural fuel: wood and grass.. i.e. Zip stove. What I myself have for eventual stove break-up (dig this: I've got experience) is simply a small 3 Watt computer fan. From a 2 litre tin can you can make excellent zip stove by cutting a small hole (2x2 cm) on one side near the bottom and another one on the other side near the top. It takes about 3 minutes of fanning to get couple of litres to boil (faster than whisperlite) and then it will burn on its own until your bean-rice-clams-seawater-stew is ready.

Weather conditions were, lets say, variable. Even if the day starts sunny and hot, in the afternoon you may wish to have more clothing to stay warm. I have two layers of wet suit socks and boots, some 12 millimetres altogether and yet sometimes wished for more. This is because the water and the wind are always cool. Because conditions are so variable, all of your weatherproof apparel has to be on deck. One consolation: whatever the weather, however bad, it wont last long. Anything gets wet and to-morrow it will be bone dry (for a moment).
 

Please do not ever fancy using goretex dry suit in a sea kayak, them fart bags are for fishermen and yacht fats and 15 minute downhill "kayakers". In Chile you will be roasted alive the moment the sun peeks from behind the cloud. This is indeed 42 parallel, same as Rome.

There was very little fish. Ground fish population is completely destroyed, but there are wandering schools of Tuna, and what I suppose to be greenlings. Also I saw some of the jumping variety, i.e. salmon. After writing this I got some 2 kilo rock-fish from a deep and rocky spot, where I expected to find some, near Quenlin. So maybe it is just a matter of skills. Clam digging improved gradually on the south side of the island.


Note: This is a real time diary. I keep two diaries: one in english, which I update as a whole to avoid situances where I contradict myself.. And one in finnish which is a true life day-to-day account of events and dreams and bowel movements (very boring, everybody says).

(Late Note: I have got mostly negative feedback from this piece. But as told, this was an experiment. I wanted to know how a story peppered with real-on-situ-emotions would look like, instead of paid-by-dads educational tale with balanced view edited in afterwards. I may have ravished some dogs and schoolgirls, or I may just have been momentarily pissed with issues unrelated. :-).

Stores or restaurants do not have anything with fibre in it. White flour and sugar seems to be the chilean diet. Lack of fibre caused me stoppage problems until I started to eat more unpeeled potatoes and chew seaweed. Explain this: Why do they have 30 varieties of macaroni but no pop corn, raisins or nuts. I do not eat spaghetti, macaroni or noodles, because they are just moulded wheat.

Natives were friendly indeed. I was somewhat irritated, because sometimes they felt obliged to send village elder to welcome me to their precious beach. I do not speak spanish and them hearty speeches were useless waste of time. Later I had some funny and almost unearthly encounters with these pueblos. Boatmen and fishermen do not really have need for spoken word. I just showed them my hecho-si-mismo rig and reel.

Southern part of Chiloe Island has got these huge blood-sucking horse-flies, sized exactly like those in Lapland. What you do is to make exactly 43 centimeter long wooden stick with flat area at the other end (call it slapstick). This particular kind of horsefly is tuned to avoid movement of the slow human hand. Slapstick is just a little bit faster and gets it every time. Slap! Crunch! Do not hit too hard. It is an enjoyment to see these huge brutes die in paralysed agony!
 

Later I discovered that when I was aware of the fly on my left side, I could flip my left hand, and catch the fly almost every time without seeing it.

However sharing the bus with disapproving nuns did not  much improve my mood.

What I did most of my time in Chile, was to read books from the Sandisk of my pocket computer. I have read all them trillion books in project Gutenberg (from "Voyage of Beagle" to "Ivanhoe"). Reading all the books in the world has not made me wiser or happier, whatever your teacher tells you. The world's highest literature is mostly shit, just entertainment. At the time of television the literature has become specifically entertainment for half blind slow lame brains unable to dig MTV.
 

(c) Timo Noko 1999