A boat going through Miraflores lock to Miraflores lake to cross Panama and head to the Atlantic, being raised 57ft….hopefully you can see how far it comes up although not sure the pictures will scroll through quickly enough!
The famous Panama canal…surprisingly impressive how they lift enormous ships 57ft using only water, gravity, train things and cleverness….
To get from Belize to Utila an island on the coast of Honduras, you can either spend 36 hours on; 1 boat, 2 buses, 1 overnight stay in a crap town, 1 more boat
Or…..we found a boat that would take us direct from Belize to Utila, in only 3 hours….Note to self: If something is to good to be true, it usually is….
What followed was, 7 hours wating around next to a petrol station for our boat, before being told we couldn’t depart due to bad weather (We had also just missed the only boat of the week from Belize to Honduras mainland…)…an extra night in expensive Belize, being illegally in the country as we had already been stamped out but had not actually left. The next day our boat was another hour late, took 2 hours to actually get out of Belize, and then 7 hours in rough seas being bounced around in a tiny 25ft tin boat in 10ft waves (not a smart idea in highsight), driving wind, rain and a storm….We actually arrived later than we would have done if we had taken the original “longer” option…
Still, at least we have this story….and our captain even bought us a few beers in Belize….apparently we made him laugh with the terror in our faces during the entire trip…awesome…
(The above is a photo of his “advert” for the return trip, a thoroughly professional outfit)
Sailing through fjords, glaciers and mountains….beautiful scenery….rubbish weather!! It snowed!!! we made it on deck for about 5 minutes before having to retreat to the bar to warm up again….
Ppppick up a penguin…..Isla de Magdalena in Chile where 80,000 Magellanic penguins come to breed every year…Zoe went crazy and couldn’t stop laughing every time a penguin did pretty much anything…we also found out they make very loud noises and sound like a donkey….
Couch surfing during rough seas…..watch the couple fly across the room as we pass through the eye of a storm….
The Desdemona shipwrecked at Cabo San Pablo, north of Cape Horn in 1986. One of many hundreds along this coastline, although one of the most visible. The ship struck rocks and the captain beached it to prevent the loss of the ship and its cargo. Hard to get to 50km off the main road down a bumpy track and a very eerie place.
El fin del mundo, The end of the World, Ushuaia Argentina. About as far south as you can get (Apart from sailing to Cape Horn…more on that later…)….sailing the Beagle Channel on the Barracuda, gazing at the mountain backdrop, freezing our arses off (it was summer, but it snowed…) and generally enjoying Tierra Del Fuego and recovering from our 32 hour trip here….
We are off to sail around Cape Horn tomorrow, fingers crossed we don’t end up like this ship, which we saw today docking into Ushuaia having experienced problems in rough seas….
