After crossing the Drake to Antarctica.. In this episode 3/8 Dominique continues to share his logbook with us. After a first anchorage at Hanna Point and the meeting of the first penguins, it's an ever more beautiful nature that is giving itself over to the crew.
First feet in Antarctica
After Hanna Point, our next port of call is Deception Island, a vast volcanic crater, one side of which has collapsed, freeing a narrow passage through which boats can enter to find refuge.
It's very nice, very quiet. Temperatures are mild, encouraging people to take long walks on land. We insure the boat on 4 long moorings fixed by means of cables on surrounding rocks.
We will explore the ruins of a British whaling station, Whaler Bay, which closed at the beginning of the 20th century and where we will encounter our first leopard seal, a large reptile-headed seal, a dreaded penguin chewler and other targets in its immediate vicinity.
No radar and a hesitant AIS
We'll soon begin our descent towards the peninsula. Because of the ice, we can only move by daylight. And even on some days, our progress is limited by fogs that can become very dense, obscuring all visibility. On those days, the radar (alas always out of order) would be very useful... On the AIS, we also see the first tourist liners appearing in these waters. They are numerous and we only see them on the AIS when they are less than 2 miles away from our boat. Obviously the range of our VHF - and AIS - is very low. An abnormal range, because the range of an AIS normally exceeds 20 miles on open water. And with the fog, you can't even tell which ships are one mile away.
Night shifts at anchor
We finally reach the anchor south of Trinity Island at the end of the day. The anchorage is precarious: 18 m deep on the bow, 41 m in the stern. And with our 50 m of chain on board, it's going to be difficult to hold on. As the night descends, we are barely hooked on the side of an underwater cliff, barely a cable away from the rocky coast. Anchor watches are therefore necessary. The night is relatively calm and we hold on. The next morning, it is high time to leave this bad anchorage before the wind picks up. But the windlass doesn't work any more!
A windlass that runs on hammer blows
Since we left Puerto Williams, I've been intrigued by the fact that every time we went up from the anchorage, the captain or his crew would arm themselves with a heavy hammer and hit the big 2200 W windlass repeatedly: 2 m of chain - bang! - 2 m of chain - bang! " It's the coals that stick! ", says the captain. His crewman confirms that for the past two years, this is how we have been proceeding to weigh anchor on this yacht. The deep marks of the hammer on the windlass casing are there to prove it. This morning, however, he was at a loss: even though they were banging on the windlass with shortened arms, he didn't want to know anything more. So we had to pull 50 metres of 12 mm chain and a 30 kg anchor up to the genoa winch. In sections of 3 m, we need 4 hours, taking turns at 6, forcing heavily on the winch. Luckily Neptune is with us: the wind does not get up any more.
A couple of wreckage
The captain has a spare engine for the windlass. But to change it, which will take some time, we need a safe anchorage. This is fortunate, because the next one, "Enterprise Island", is a couple of metres from a whaling shipwreck, the Governoren, which burned in 1915 in a small bay. There are 2 well-known boats: the Austrian catamaran Vineka (one of the 3 catamarans listed to sail in this part of the world), and the charter yacht Santa Maria Australis. The small bay is very protected, even if the heavy ice ledges overhanging the anchorage are very impressive.
Ashore, a few wooden boats, in a remarkable state of preservation, abandoned by the whalers, recall those ancient days when whales were seen only as large oil tanks to light up the city of London.
While the repair of the windlass is going well on board, we are faced with our first visitors from a cruise ship that is loosening up in front of the anchorage. In their big expedition semi rigid, all dressed in red and all armed with heavy telephoto lenses (we call them "red penguins"), they come to take pictures of us from all angles, sometimes only a few meters away. We have to look like modern-day adventurers!
Windlass wiring too weak
When the windlass motor is removed from the windlass, diagnosis is quick: the electrical wiring that powers the motor is undersized for a 2200 W motor. The resulting over-current burns the coals and/or the winding. As long as this wiring is not properly dimensioned, it will only be part of it before the next failure. For the time being the windlass is functional again.
To be continued...
