Egret's crew gets to know its neighbours
Position: 54° 48.80S 68° 18.36W
Ushuaia, Argentina
Scott and Mary Flanders left Gibraltar on 16 September, and we’ll be following their journey every step of the way, thanks to this unique online “blog”. For a full list of their logs, click here .
This is Egret’s life the past couple of weeks. The dock we’re on is a single long dock with a dogleg to the right into deeper water. It also has a small floating dinghy dock for those on anchor or moorings. The dock costs Egret $16/day (£8.15) with water but no electricity. We came into the dock initially for water but were able to get next to the dock AND on the preferred side (weather) so we stayed meaning to leave nearly every day. But here we sit.
The social life with the returning Antarctic boats and other arrivals is too good to pass up. In the picture of the five boats rafted behind Egret they are: Mallard (Americans from Georgia), Wandering Albatross (a South African and his Scottish wife just returned from 2 months in Antarctica – over tonight for dinner), a French boat with two on board (short stay & no contact), Seal (a Brit and his Canadian wife two young daughters), Gloria (American owner with a crew of 4, just in from New Zealand and on to Ireland via Buenos Aires). The two boats rafted outside Egret are a young French couple (boat bums – really nice) and another French boat registered in Antigua, also really nice.
On the other side of the dock and just forward of Egret are Sadko, our British ex-diplomat buddy and outside him is Roger on Orbit, a former British scientist and sailing school owner (both over last night for dinner. Sadko is flying home to the UK for a hernia operation so Mary is pampering him & he loves the attention. Behind them is Tari II, an Italian boat registered in Rome with Antonio (a wild and crazy guy – Tony talka wid de hands aflyin’). Tony is trying to charter but being a small boat only sleeping three in discomfort it’s tough. Behind Tony is Shanty, a German boat with four half lambs hanging from the solar panel bracket (yes outside). It is tradition for boats leaving to hang a lamb in the rigging outside for later. Unfortunately for the meat but good for us it has been warm. The other night we had a large yachtie gathering in a close by eatery honouring Shanty’s buddy Wolfgang, another German, who runs the Patagonia single sideband cruisers net. Two years ago Wolfgang saved a couple’s lives when they didn’t report in daily as usual & pestered the Chilean Armada into searching for them. They were shipwrecked and ashore in bad condition in the Chilean Canals. The Chileans found them using Wolfgang’s approximate location. Outside of Shanty is a very small Canadian sailboat who just arrived with a single hander.
So there you have it. A small community of constantly moving little floating homes here in a beautiful part of the world. There will be about 6-8 of us wintering here. Our plan is to cruise the Chilean Canals returning to Ushuaia from time to time. We’ll see what really happens. There is so much to do and so little time. We have a few plans but that is for another day.
If the weather’s good tomorrow, we’re off for a couple of weeks. If not, you know the deal. Ciao.
