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!

How to "grow" a sea kayak expedition?

A year ago, during the optimist kayak symposium, the seed of sea kayaking expedition was planted.
I met Jeff Allen and Justine Curgenven, heard the stories, talked alot to Hadas Feldman
(Who agreed to be the expedition manager), and decided I also want some of it.
After guiding for a few years, and traveling around with white water kayaks. I thought I must try this as well.
Since then, I spent hours on Google earth. I measured the length of the coasts around almost every island on the blue planet. The conditions I set came from the time limits I had, the time of year I wanted to paddle in, and gut feeling.

In this virtual circumnavigation of the globe, I met other paddlers, always keen to help. Each place I found attractive, I looked if someone have already paddle there. So the combination of "………. Kayak circumnavigation" came more then once on my Google search bar.
One of the more interesting paddlers I talked to was Anthony Malloch. The guy has a great web site, describing some amazing expeditions in Australia. Actually, after hearing his crocks stories, I decided not paddle to Papua New Guinea.
Then Sharon, my girlfriend said something about Chile. At first, it looked like to long expedition to take (considering the time limits). But then, the more I gave it a though, it looked as if another month won't be too bad.
So, I began by buying a pilot book of the region. Then started to talk about it to friends and this is how I got Roy into it and he brought On.
From that point, there was no turning back. With Hadas's help, we got REED and WERNER and OPTIMIST as gear sponsors. LARABAR as energy bar sponsors, and even Limor and Udi who kayak with us, offered their help with the logistics expenses.
Along the way, almost everyone around us gave a hand.
So now we are exactly 2 weeks from the flight to Santiago. And after a year that almost every experience I had was in the light of the upcoming adventure, it only gets more intense.
For example, waking up to a first rainy Saturday in Israel, gets different meaning, when you think that the next time will probably be in a wet tent with On and Roy instead of here with Sharon…
We still have some gear arriving soon, On is working on the Solar system and Roy keeps studying the weather.
We still have this year's symposium ahead of us, a few vaccines and some packing to do.
This time was with no pictures, sorry. Hope the ones yet to come will compensate for this bare post…
Yosale

getting closer....

The road has not really started yet, and the amount of people's willingness to help is amazing.

Just in the past week, almost everyone that heard of the upcoming expedition could look for and find the way he or she can be of assistance. And I'm talking about information, ideas, connections in Chile and more.
I can hardly think of a more boring thing then a "thank you" list, but I think that we can give a general idea of our preparations by mentioning some the people we met in the past few days.

So many of the people we know has offered their help in one way or another, so this is only a partial list from the past few days:

Food, hazards, and marine life-
Racheli Einav, a marine biologist and paddler, hosted us at her house for a great evening of wine, cheese and sea food. She introduced us to Alvaro Israel, a Chilean marine biologists that advised us of what sea food could be found in the fjords of Patagonia. He also connected us with people in Chile that monitor red tide- a dangerous blooming of micro sea weeds, which can cause death within 24 hours if you eat something that ate it…

Solar power:
Racheli heard we are having difficulties with building our solar power system. She immediately connected us with Hanan Levy, an alternative energy expert that was glad to spend a long afternoon on the phone with On, solving some of the issues he ran into while building the system.

Nutrition:

Ariel Zilberstein,, who is kayaking at our club and practices to an iron man competition these days, has connected us with a sports nutrition expert ,Yair Karni,. So we all took blood tests, and went to hear from him about the right way of eating during a long distance challenge.

Psychological aspect:
Ohad Shafrir, also a paddler at "Optimist" and psychologist, offered his help in the preparation for spending long days in a small tent together…

Logistics:
Limor and Udi Steigman offered their help as logistics sponsors.

First aid:

Dr. Kobi Sade, who kayaked in north –west Greenland in 2008 spring agreed to help us with building a list of the necessary first aid for the trip.


Yet to come-
Meteorological experts, Israel's past represents in Chile and other adventurers that are willing to share their experience.


With every meeting, the anticipation grows, and it starts to look real.

3 weeks to go…