Tropical Paradise at the End of the World

September 8, 2015

Bahia Anna Pink is our today destination, a large bay north of the Peninsula de Taitao which welcomes all vessels that from northern Patagonia reach the ocean to cross the Golfo de Penas and thus continuing to the south channels. Still little wind and still motoring.

Isla Clemente namely its southern coast overlooking Bahia Ana Pink, offers a very protected anchorage, Puerto Milabù (which is not a true port, but here in Patagonia any anchorage protected from the winds that can accommodate more than 2 boats It is called port). It will be our base to wait for favorable conditions to cross Golfo de Penas, which could take few days, so hopefully it will be a friendly place.

We read that this is one of the few white beach of Patagonia and we do not rule out that Ray can decide to stand in the sun or even take a bath. We sail along the nearly four kilometers of the fjord and while approaching the head, a movie like landscape appear in all its scenic beauty. The beach of white "arena" is at least 500 meters wide.

On the west coast, from perfectly smooth rock wall, a multi terraces waterfall flows downstream to disappear in a thick vegetation behind the beach. What a paradise. If we have to wait even few days, we feel that this place will not disappoint us. Immediately after anchoring we go ashore. The waterfall forms a stream that flows into the sea through the beach. We load the dinghy with all our gerry cans and reach the stream to fill them.

Completed this task we surrender to the charm of this beautiful spot in Patagonia. Vale takes millions of photos: the beach, the waterfall, the sand, the mosses, the thousands of extravagant forms that wind and rain engraving from anything to grows up from the land.

Ray goes in search of a passage in the thick vegetation that would allow to scale the waterfall and reach an infamous lake we heard but no one has ever seen personally. I, as a shepherd, run back and forth between the two in a vain attempt to keep the flock together.

September 9, 2015

At 8:00 in the morning, almost at dawn, Ray is ready inside his lobster color like PVC suit. He is determined to find a way to reach the waterfall. Vale still sleeping, excellent excuse to decline to follow.

I prefer to dedicate myself to write these few confused line in the early morning, when my crew still rests and I’m alone in the quarter. At the 11h Ray is back, he reached the top and found the fateful lake. He radiates happiness from every pore and invites us to follow him for a second ride to the top.

We prepare a backpack and set off. With the dinghy we reach the base of the waterfall and from there we begin to delve into the thick vegetation. I do not think of being able to describe the path that we have faced.

The beach is nothing but the result of erosion caused by two streams that flow into it, you are wedged into a groove in the head of the fjord. The vegetation of the gorge is mostly done by large shrubs and trees that once they fall dead on the other, form a web of living and dead trees all covered by moss and therefore extremely slippery. All adorned with a dense series of ferns, creepers and other preciousness of nature such that the delve become a real obstacle course. The space in which you move can just be measured with a centimeter.

The left foot on a dead trunk, the right hand on the root of the tree one meter above your head, the tip of the right foot an a small recess in the mud and up. We cross the dense forest and we are on the first terrace of the waterfall. From there we start to climb across a well polished wall, a sign that in the spring and summer the waterfall floods this part of the wall. We proceed like this for about half an hour. We reach the second terrace.

From here the view of the bay is spectacular. The whites and yellows of the beach, almost rust of the stream, the various shades of green of the sea. I wonder how much technology is in our eyes if the man has not yet managed to build up a photographic lens which can faithfully reproduce what our human lens are shooting.

We continue the climb. The soil becomes heavier. The slopes of the mountain are fully soups water. But there is no mud. The soil is completely covered by a moss which creates a spongy layer above the ground.

We proceed for 1 hour and we arrive at the third terrace. We make a stop rewarding ourself with crackers and a sip of cognac. We still have in front of us the last and more inclined stretch to climb.

We reached the top 1/2 hour later and, well sheltered from the wind, a large rock on the other side of the mountain welcomes us with a view of an emerald lake down in the valley.