Sailing South

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Hi All.

Well here I sit in Valdivia, Chile back on the Sail boat I left Australia on, almost 2 years ago. We have a few things left to repair after mats previous crossing from New Zealand to Chile, before we set out on the trip we originally intend to do. To sail to the Antarctic peninsula and on to Argentina.



It's been quite a while since writing a blog and many things have happened in between. To briefly sum it all up. After returning to the US in January this year, I met back up with Jessica, the beautiful lady I have fallen in love with. We then spent 3 months traveling down through Mexico to Guatemala together, before she departed to Venezuela to meet up with a friend of hers and continue to travel in South America.

I decided to stay in a place called San Pedro, in Guatemala for the next month to learn some Spanish. The month spent in San Pedro was a great experience. I met some great people who were running a cafe there and that was where I spent most of my spare time, chatting about where this world we live in is falling short and observing the drunk and coked out tourists which would come and leave throughout the day. The town was an interesting place indeed. It sat at the foothills of a giant volcano, on the edge of a lake. it was a really beautiful town, filled with an interesting mix of locals and tourists from all walks of life. The place is a porridge of Argentinian hippies selling jewelry, red neck Australians getting pissed, vegans performing chocolate ceremonies, lost old expats battling their lost happiness and drug addictions and lots of young tourists coming to the lake to party like they cant back in their own over ruled dull western countries. Instead of being part of this crowd, for the first time I found myself sitting on the other side observing it all happen around me. It was a bit of a life changing experience sitting there taking this all in. I saw the good and the bad of it all. I saw the stupidity and the learning of people like my self and left the place a different person as to when I came.



After learning enough Spanish to count to 10 and muddle a few sentences together I flew from Guatemala city down to Colombia where I spent a couple of weeks back with Jessica and her friend Adele while I looked for Jobs taking tourists from Colombia to Panama on sailing boats.
after sending a few emails I received an Email from a company that had a Speed boat, taking people from the Panamanian boarder, across the Darien gap and into Panama. The trip was over 4 days going from Island to Island before arriving at a small town where all the tourists were driven to Panama City. After few exchanges I left to where they were building a hostel in a town called La Miel which is a 20 minute walk from Colombia up over a hill.
La Miel is in the middle of the Darien gap and is a small village of about 100 people. There are a few other villages along the coast in both Panama and Colombia but otherwise the place is completely Isolated. there's no roads or cars and it takes a day in a speed boat to get there from either Panama or Colombia. Its Isolated and beautiful, with Rainforest hills falling down into palm tree lined beaches.

I spent the next three months either working building beds and things for the hostel that was being built there or working on the boat, taking tourists to Panama City. It was a different experience and a lot of fun, however working for my alcoholic boss, dealing with tourists and living in the Jungle, either sleeping under a shelter with no walls or in a tent for nearly three months was enough, and I was happy to leave.



After Taking the last group of tourists to Panama City, I spent the next month in Panama. I spent about half that time in Panama City where I learn't some more Spanish by befriending a homeless crack addict who grew up in America, but hated the place so being half Panamanian had come to Panama at a young age where he enlisted in the army and served Panama when the US decided it should continue the worlds path to freedom by killing Panamanians in a war that's still unknown by most of the world. He was a interesting character and provided some of my most memories while I was in Panama City. My Spanish lessons were done under the promise I'd take him to the pub and shout him a few beers and my Spanish lessons ended up swaying to talking about his life and the politics of the US and Panama which I found all very interesting. The rest of the time was divided up between walking the city or hanging with some friends I had made that were running a hostel. This time In Panama city was divided into 2 segments with the middle becoming a a 10 day road trip around the rest of Panama with Shaun a friend of mine from Texas who had been working with me in La Miel.

After leaving Panama and flying with Shaun back to Dallas Texas, I met back up with Jessica. Jessica and I then proceeded to spend 6 weeks living with her family in Kansas City. We spent that time having a lot of fun while building all the things necessary for the next up coming burning man, where we had a camp of around 20 people. After leaving Kansas we had a fantastic time driving across the states to Los Angeles. This time around I actually had some time and got to head up through the Colorado mountains and through Some of Americas best National Parks before picking up my best friend Duncan and my mother at LA airport. From there we went up to San Francisco and onto Burning Man. Having the time to see this much of America again, with my best friend and in a van that we could sleep in was one of the most fun times I had had in a long time and finishing it up with another burning man was a perfect way to top it all off.



Burning man was another fantastic year and some what of a different experience to the last. This year we had a Camp of around 20 people and the camp was built pretty much entirely by our friend Adele, Jessica And I. I had also changed quite a bit since the last burning man and Having my mum and 2 good friends from Australia made burning man a new experience from the last. And like every burning man this one was yet again a life changing experience. Its pretty safe to say no that if I cant make it to Burning Man each year from now on, possibly the world has imploded.

After Burning Man We packed up and headed on another road trip with Mum and Duncan on board down through Nevada to the Grand Canyon then Through Texas and onto New Orleans where the Aussies flew home and we drove back to Kansas City. I spent another week there before leaving yet again for Peru to meet up with Mats Dad Steve where we would make our way down to southern Chile to jump on the Boat. Leaving The States yet again was to say the least a bit tough. I had made life lasting memories of fun and adventure with someone who Id fallen in love with and now was back at it on my own in what is to be a very different trip from all the previous traveling I had done.

I spent the next week in Cusco, Peru waiting for Steve to arrive. During this time I went into the sacred valley and performed an Ayahuaska ceremony, another very changing experience before setting off with Steve to
Machu Picchu. From there we bussed and hiked our way into Northern Chile where we stayed with a fantastic couch surfer and tried to buy 2 motorcycles in the hope we could ride down to meet mat. Unfortunately what we thought was to be a not so hard task turned out to be way too expensive and quite hard so we flew onto Santiago.



The last few weeks after arriving to Santiago were spent busing again through some really beautiful mountains and towns where we managed to get some great hiking in, in some really amazing national parks. Chile is a really beautiful country. The southern part is at the same latitude as Tasmania, and with the man made addition of Wattle trees, Blackwood Trees and Gum plantations, it looks like the same country in many places. at a glance about the only thing that really sets it apart is the size of the volcano's and the taller mountains everywhere.



After all of this, Ive now been sitting on Mat's boat for about a week now. After setting off from Tassie bound for New Zealand the February before Last I could not have imagined what has lied in between. We originally had planned to be sitting here this time last year ready to do this trip and I was going to go to Russia. None of that eventuated of course and most of my original plans were left behind as new ones came up in-front of me. I think from the beginning I always knew this would happen and it feels nice to have been able to let the World put new things in front of me and steer me in different directions to what i had originally intended. After all this time, I have to say,I'm ready once this trip is done and dusted, to forget about back packs boats and buses for a while and start something new. I'm not quite sure what that is, but after all this traveling, its become pretty apparent that the world is a little sick and needs some help.

Sitting back in the Bubble of western society in Tasmania is a pretty cosy place however after walking around the globe and trying to work it all out, it becomes pretty obvious that nearly every problem this world is facing is a direct result of western countries like our own. While the Western world sits in a bubble of manufactured reality, ultimately controlled by only a hand full of rich people who want to control it even more, the rest of the world is busy getting given bank loans that destroy their economies, and having every resource taken from them at next to nothing to feed our want for cheap material possessions and materialistic lifestyle while they all live in poverty. Meanwhile our own lifestyle is being so dictated by governments, corporations and a group of a few select people who want to rule the world that most people in our western countries are ultimately living a life that will see their grand children living in a real life version of Oldous Huxleys book "A Brave New World". I'm not quite sure what should be done to fix this, but fixing log trucks and mining equipment in Tasmania doesn't quite sound like the correct answer to me.

However, getting back back on subject, I'm now here with mat and Steve busily and to nobody who knows the three of us together a surprise, drunkenly getting ready to try and get to Antarctica. We didn't think the trip would be possible before we got here as Mat had received nothing but bad news from other sailors when it came to getting permission. As luck happens however, When mat arrived to the Marina, he pulled up along side 2 other fellow Tasmanian's who were taking expeditions down to the peninsula and they provided us with all the relevant information and contacts within the Australian Antarctic division to get approval. However even with approval there is still many factors such as bad weather, insurance and possible damage to the boat on our way to Cape Horn that could prevent us making it all the way to the Antarctic peninsula, being this far south in the world means that nothing is certain. We can only hope for the best.

If all goes to plan, we hope to leave next week. Unfortunately our weather window to leave this week closes up on Friday, the day we were hoping to leave but due to a few to many nights catching up, it looks like we wont be ready on time. Currently Steve is using his past skills as an environmental consultant to fill out all the needed paper work to give to the Antarctic division, while Mat and I fix a few mechanical problems on the boat before we leave.
Hopefully if all goes to plan, we should be sitting ready to leave when ever the weather is ready to let us by the end of this weekend.

Our first mission is to get from here to Peurto Williams and check out of Chile, then move onto Ushiusia. the sothern most city in the world and where we shall wait for our weather window to make it down to the Antarctic peninsilla. This first leg of the Journey should take about 3 weeks to a month and is going to be a big challenge for us all. The weather is unpredictable and in general, the most unfriendly in the world and the straights of megellin and the drake passage are considered the worst to seas in the world, so it shall be an interesting. We are all confident that the trip will be a safe one, but by no means an easy one. To begin with, we will sail ourselves a way off from the Patagonian coast and hope the weather stays good enough for us to make a fast trip down to Peurto Williams. If it gets too rough, our second option is to head into the straights of Patagonia where the mountains will provide us with some shealter, however this will mean that it will take longer to reach the bottom and provides us with many potential hazards in the form of Islands and obsticals to hit.

From Ushiusia, we hope to get a good weather window to allow us to make it down to the Antarctic peninsilla where we will spend as long as possible before heading onto the Fualkland Islands. Just like the trip leading up to getting here, it could all change within a week, however with a bit of luck on our side and some carefull planning it now looks acheivable that we could very well be spending Christmas in Antarctica. A long thought about goal that all three of us have wanted to do for a long time now.
Hopefully my last blog entry to write will be after being able to make it to all the way to Antarctica and back again by mid January, where Ill set off back to America to look for a job and start building more things for another exiting burning man in 2014.

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