"six slipery seals slipping silently ashore"

Just heard from the boys, and they are on their way.
Paddling south out of the bay of port mount ,they were escorted by seals and saw penguins along the shore and in the water.
The penguins are HUMBOLDT PENGUINS that are found along the Pacific coast of northern Chile and Peru, with one tiny colony further south on the Island of Chiloe.
Their weather forecast looks good for the next 2 days.

added a position map

Hey,
bad weather forecast for today made us stay in puerto montt for another day.
about 30 knt winds from the north proved it to be a right desicion...
weather looks very good for tomorow and the next few days, so tomorow noon (friday) we will be on our way.
we took advantage of the extra time to finish final arrangments, being interviewd to a local newspaper, and to add a position map to the blog.
the Chilean Navy asked for a daily position updates. Hadas agreed to get them from us by satellite phone and mail it to the Armada. so i believe that the position on the map could be pretty updated.
will be in touch from the next internet.
on, shaz and yos.

starting on wednsday

Got all the permits we needed to get on the water.
if weather is good we will start paddling on wednsday morning.
so now it´s up to karel... (thanks for the updates!)
yesterday and today we spent some time on Google Earth, getting as much info as possible from the internet down to our maps.
we will use 1:250,000 topographic maps, and 1:300,000/500,000/1.000,000 nautical charts.
so in some places, internet is verry usefull.
(u can imagine that 1:50,000 are better, but covering 2000 km with those is to comlicated..)
so, enjoying the beer wine and sea food while we can,
us.

don´t they want to paddle as well?

Well, karl´s forecast became real. So today it´s winter here. Strong north winds and lot´s of rain.
Add that to the fact that our permits should be ready only on Monday, and you get a few more days to get ready.
Departure will probably won´t be before Monday noon or Tusday morning.
Meanwhile, we have done our shopping. We went to a huge super market and bought food supply for about a month. The idea is to avoid looking for food every few days. We don´t know exactley what´s available in every little village, so even thow there are a few along the first 2-3 weeks, we prefer being ready.
Our diet will be based on rice (10 kg) or pasta (8 kg) for the evenings (plus cooking some extra for the next day´s lunch), porridge ( 5kg) and Chia seeds for breakfast and dried salmon (15 kg) and meat (5 kg) for lunch.
Plus we will have some cheese (6 kg) and about 15 kg of LARABAR for the day.
Plus we bought about 9 kg of choclate
The guidelines are alot of calories and as much protein as possible
We also bought a few Rapalas for fishing, so we hope to get something fresh to eat out of the sea as well. (clams are out of limit south of Chiloe because of Red Tide)
So, we keep ourselves busy and learn something new every day.
For example, our Swiss roomate just told us yesterday over a beer, that ¨Shatz¨ or ¨Shatzy¨means ¨darling¨in Swiss-German. So now we have a good explenation for some weired looks.
The real funny thing is, that Roy (Shatzki) knew it, and didn´t tell us...
Something new every day...

In the pictures:
Puerto Montt at low tide, long shopping list and comparing toilet paper lenths, and the fish market.

sorry for the delay...

While i was writing yesterday, the truck brining the kayaks arrived.

don´t worry, they are in better shape then they looks.

So, as i was saying, sikaflex-


Meditating

And alot of work on the solar pannels

So now the kayaks are in Casa Perla guest house garden, they get a view of Puerto Montt bay and waiting.
The Navy permits should be ready today and we will do some food shopping.

Other then the ¨facts¨ and details, we start getting excited. The look at the bay and the mountains surounding it making everything looks real.
Durring the past week (almost 2) in Chile we learned alot. The spanish got a little better, we find it easier to find the stuff we are looking for (even thoe we looked the police office that will give us permits to buy flairs and smoke bomb for 3 hours).
But i think that most of all we learn to deal with each other. Putting 3 (almost grown uops) together can bring up alot of surprises, but i´m just begining to realize how much each of us has to learn from the other 2. And learning is not always as simple as different ways to tigh a knot or to make a better sweep stroke. Alot of times it involves making some basic changes in our way of thinking, and thats the interesting part.
So, today some more shopping, fixing last peices and some map work.
Maby leaving tomorow or the day after (more likely), we will write when we know.
ON, Shaz and me.

ahh, and one for Avital and one for Asaf:

WHATS NEW

In the last post it was just throwing of the pictures and not much of what´s going on. So...
After arriving in valdivia, we were very glad to meet the guys from Pueblitoexpediciones. Our prior contact was onley by mail, and it´s always good to find out that there are nice faces behind the @blabla.com. it was also very important, because we had alot of work to do, and without them letting us work between their feet and helping with wathever we needed, it was much harder.
We spent the nights in a great backpacker called Aires Buenas, a nice place with people from all over the world. What work? Well, sealing the bulkjeads better was important.
Putting something to alevate the life lines for easy grip,
buying some fishing gear,
meditating and getting ourself fameliar with the local beer.

KAYAKS ARRIVED IN THE TRUCK, TO BE CONTINUED...

pictures from santiago and valparaiso

hey!
had a lot of work lately....
so couldn´t find time to write, so meanwhile, a few pictures and the major details:
http://picasaweb.google.com/royshatzki/SantiagoValParaiso
http://picasaweb.google.com/royshatzki/KayakValdivia
spent a few great days in valdivia. the guys from "pueblito expediciones" were great and helped us with everything we needed while prepairing the kayaks.
as you can see, i swtithced to prijon seayak, deu to a problem in one of the siroccos.
as for the preperations, we sealed the bulk heads with sikaflex, put some new life lines in some places and yesterday went for a trile around the island Teja, our first circumnavigation...

heading to puerto montt soon, to get the arnmada perrmits. the kayaks will be shgipped by truck, again, with the help of roberto, edwardo and jorje from pueblito.
it start getting closer...
first time on the water in chile gave us an idea of what we are heading to. 20 knts and great views!
ahha, and spellers don't work for english in some place, so sorry (steve, ido and barak...)
avital, as i promised....

Valdivia

Arrived in Valdivia this morning after a night bus. Valdivia is a city that many Germans used to live in in the past, and still known for it`s beer and German names for some of the streets.
The city looks nice and so does our new kayaks!!
First meeting with the “curent designs” Sirocco boats.
There is some work to be done in order to get it ready.
The solar pannels must be secured to the back deck and so does the battery cases.
In the picture you can see On and Shatz testing the new toy with Jorje and Edward that gave us a hand with the preperations.
The third kayak is about to arrive tomorow.
There is a bit un certenty about the permits we are waiting for, but we have decided that once we will finish getting the gear ready, if we still have to wait we will do it while doing some white water kayaking in the town of Pucon which is 3 hours drive from here.
So it feels like we are getting closer to the water, hopefully sooner then later.
Bye for now,
On Shatz and me.

So, what have we been up to lately?

Well, yesterday we had a very surprising day.
We took a 1 hour bus to Valparaiso, a city on the beach, an hour drive from Santiago. We went there to buy some marine charts and meet with Tortello. Tortello is a Navy Colonel (hope I'm not mistaking with the rank), he is now retired, so we can show you the pictures...
He picked us up at the Prat monument in the city. A a few words of history, you may skip to the end of the paragraph, but you shouldn't:
Prat is a war hero. During the war of the pacific, between Peru-Bolivia and Chile, he held a siege on the city of Iquique with two wooden ships against the more powerful ironclad Peruvian ships.
He fell in the battle, while trying to take over the ramming Peruvian war ship.They say that his death inspired plenty of young people to join the army and was a significant stage in winning the war for Chile.
So, we were picked up by Tortello straight to the headquarters of the Chilean search and rescue center. Also know as MRCC. The place is located on a high steep cliff, above the ocean. First look of the pacific for On, and 25-30 knots wind to reminds us all where exactly are we.
These are the guys that will get our distress call if we send one (sorry, but we won't!).
so, meeting with the commander in charge was important to us, and a great idea of Tortello.
The meeting held in a hi-tec control room, above the ocean. Really impressive place.
The Commander Cofre', was verry helpful and gave us an idea of how to make our permit request.
We also found out that there are French kayakers, starting from the south in January, maybe we'll meet along the way.
An hour later, after buying some marine charts, we were having a beer with Tortello at the Hamburg bar. The place looks like a maritime museum. Dozens of bells in all shapes and sizes, flags from all over the world, and even the monocular of Pinochet himself .
As you can see in the pictures, the Israeli navy has a respectable place around the bar.
Later on, Tortello showed us around town and while he was driving, I wrote almost every word he said. The man spent a few year in th Patagonian channels and had an answer to almost everything we wanted to know: weather, currents, food etc.
it's not a usual thing to find someone so nice, that have a good answer to whatever you ask and all of that while showing you around town after a beer...
dropped of at the bus station, still surprised by the amazing chance we had to meet him (it wasn't luck, Eli, gave us Tortello's cell phone and we can't thank him enough).
We headed back to Santiago, understanding we have a lot of work to do.
We found out that there are other authorities that must approve our expedition before we start. So tomorrow and in the next few days we will try getting things going in the different offices.
Meanwhile, we got another supporter for the trip. Borris (from the last post), is working in a company that market Chia seeds. The seeds are grown in Bolivia, and were used by the ancient Indians before long term missions. So we got Chia supply, they have Omega 3 and prevent hunger and dissolve slowly during continues effort. (hope I'm getting things right here, for all the doctors and sports experts back home).
Any way, hope thing will get moving soon, so you won't have to deal with such long posts and we won't have to eat that much sea food.
Hasta luego, On, Shaz and me.

Hello from Santiago

Hey all,
we arrived in Santiago yesterday.
mean while we collected the package from LARABAR, brought to us by Boris, a great guy, connection here via Niv, who showed us around town.

In the big black bag you can see most of our gear, also known as ¨grandmother¨. she goes everywhere with us, and don´t have any special needs so far.

On says, that after spending 20 year 6 feet under, she´s a bit afraid of open spaces, and that´s why she spends most of the time in the bag. the Chiliean sniff dog at the airport, didn´t think it was funny...



anyway, we had a meeting at the embassy, and we will meet a few more people around here in the next few days.
2 kayaks are already waiting for us in Valdivia, and the third one will arrive on Saturday, hopefully...


mean while, as you can see, On and Shatz are pleased with their room.





bye for now,


Ha Shatzkim.

It all begins today

Actually, as I wrote in the last post, it has already begun about a year ago. But at noon, we had of to chile.
The past week was way to busy, giving us all very little time for saying goodbye properly and get excited.
The amount of support we got here in the past few days should be enough to give us a good head start.

We hope to be interesting (but not to interesting) in the upcoming posts and pictures we will send.

Meanwhile, today we've got our gear from Reed, and while trying it out, it turned out that it's a bit over shoot for the weather in Kibutz Regavim .

Here you can see On trying to stop Roy from driving over his gear while he is trying his new paddling wear. He should have tried harder…

So now all that's left is to wish us luck with our first series crossing- the check in with the over weight…

Next one, from Santiago De Chile!