Thank you ... and the video!

Thank you for the warm welcome, your interest and the great turn out at Thursday's Tierra Del Fuego presentation at Pier 66 in NYC!

We took 4 hours of video footage during the trip and hope we will have a decent 10 to 20 minute film ready in a 2 or 3 weeks. We will notify you either on manhattankayak.com, marcusdemuth.com or tieradelfuego2010.com when and where the video can be seen!

My last words for this blog are a huge, huuuuuge, "Thank You" to everyone for following our trip through Chile and Argentina and for your interest in Achilles!

Tierra Del Fuego 2010 Talk, Thursday, Feb 11th, 7 PM, Pier 66

Join us for our little talk, slideshow, and hopefully video (the camera currently does not allow to upload the footage) about the steep ups and downs of our Tierra Del Fuego Expedition at Pier 66 on Thursday, February 11th, 2010 at 7 PM.

We will do the best to portray the sometimes most hostile landscapes and conditions, the most amazing and hospitable people I ever met, and to talk about our 11 days at Caleta Falsa and our decision (and even math!) to end the trip, and our few options to get to the closest road, which was about 100 Miles away.

Where: Pier 66, NYC, 26th St. and Hudson River
When: Thursday, Feb 11th, 2010. 7 PM
What: Tierra Del Fuego Expedition Slide Show and Talk

The event will be again a potluck! Please bring a bottle of something you would like to share, a snack, yesterday's leftovers from the Chinese place ... anything!

Go Achilles!

Not all winds are bad (head winds, the painful to-listen-to Scorpions song "Wind of Change" etc.) ...

... I am thinking about about the windfall created by all of you who kindly donated to the cause of our expedition, the non profit "Achilles", a NYC based organization we are volunteering for since past Summer which enables people with disabilities to participate in mainstream athletics.

Although we are bummed out that the expedition is over, we are happy to see that we (the "we" is for everyone who donated) have reached, and even exceeded, the fundraising goal of $2,000.

A huge, H-U-G-E, Thank You to all of you for donating or for showing interest in the work of Achilles!!

The kayaking chapter of Achilles will use this money to buy gear (paddles, pfds) and propably another double kayak for our 2nd season of the Achilles kayak training program for disabled kayakers at our home base, Pier 66, in NYC.

Biff and I will be at Pier 66 in NYC next Thursday, February 11th at 7 PM (the date is pencilled in, but not confirmed yet, please stay tuned) to give a talk about our Tierra del Fuego expedition, to show pictures and a 10 minute video about our ups and downs from the past 6 weeks in the Land of Fire.


Marcus, Biff

Letter from Tierra Del Fuego

Yesterday, Friday, Biff and I stopped our Tierra del Fuego Sea Kayak Expedition.

For the past 11 days we were weatherbound in Caleta Falsa, a small bay at the far South Eastern tip of Tierra del Fuego. We made countless break out attempts, but had to return every time back into the shelter of the bay due to the dangerous sea state we encountered every time we stuck our nose out of the shelter of Caleta Falsa.

Despite receiving favorable weather forecasts indicating possible paddling days, after rounding Cape San Diego, we only experienced NW winds (headwinds) between 20 and 60 Miles/hr.(measured with our anenometer).

Nautical guides and information obtained prior to the trip indicated winds on the East Coast of Tierra del Fuego would be West or South West, which would have resulted in offshore and beam winds, suitable for paddling. However the winds we were encountering in the past 11 days were not only strong headwinds, but also created 15 to 20 foot breaking waves on this very exposed coast, making paddling Northwards difficult to dangerous from our point of view.

Because non-paddling days outnumbered paddling days by almost 7 to 1 in the past almost 2 weeks, it became apparent that

• We would not be able to complete the trip in a reasonable amount of time


• We would soon run out of food due to the increased number of days spent on land


• Our safety margin was dwindling, due to increasing numbers of separately small issues that as a whole, resulted in significant safety concerns. These included a broken paddle, dwindling fuel, water and food supplies, lack of weather forecasts (due to low sat phone battery) etc.


• In addition to the above safety issues, we learned from the Prefectura Naval (Argentinian Coast Guard) that they would not be able to rescue us (by either land or sea) at the highly inaccessible Caleta Falsa, should the need arise to activate our EPIRBs.


• Landings were too sparse and far apart to accommodate the fast-changing weather


• Due to the 39ft tidal range, the difficulty and time needed to get onto the water (dragging kayaks and gear for 1/2 Mile) often exceeded the windows of calm weather (we tried this several times but were always forced to turn around).

After jointly arriving at the decision to end the trip, we were extremely fortunate to be visited at Caleta Falsa by two (extremely rich) Irish fly fishermen in a privately charted helicopter. After discussions with the pilot we were able to come to terms for a ride to the closest road (100 Miles away) with most of our gear. Our beloved kayaks, unfortunately, were left behind.

From our experience, we now believe that for the best chance of making a successful circumnavigation of Tierra del Fuego, that the attempt should be made in a clockwise direction. This said, no one has ever clockwise paddled from Ushuaia to Punta Arenas and the difficulty of doing this against the prevailing winds and against the local knowledge should not be underestimated.

We would like to thank all of you for the unconditional support we received in the past months. We will contact all of you in the upcoming weeks (we fly back to NYC this coming Wed).

This was the trip of our lifetime, just a little different than we imagined, but still worth every minute and paddle stroke ...

Marcus, Biff

January 30th, 2010. Rio Grande, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina

corrections

hey all

mis posted my phone: 303.884.4083


and the password for the Windguru has a 'zero' for the '0' in Heathr0w. it doesn't show up well on the web for some reason.


regards,

adam

held down due to high winds

hey all,

just got another phone call from the DD. they are currently stuck at their present location due to high winds. 40+ knots and right at them so paddling is not an option. i got a weather report for them and the wind situation is not good for the next week, as it constant from 20 to 40 knots. only one morning where the winds will be 15 - 18 knots which is still over their max which is 15knots. so they will continue to stay put until the situation changes. if they cannot reach me and need a weather report from one of you the site and login is as follows.

www.windguru.com

username: biffw1
password: Heathr0w


you can then chose to pinpoint a spot on the map to receive a weather report for by going to forcast>click-map forecast (second tab in the top bar).

so those are the haps, if anyone has any questions, please feel free to give me a call at 303.844.4083

adam

Rendezvous in Bahya Bueno Suceso

After waiting for favorable (and low) winds for 2 days in the abandoned building of the Estancia Espagnol in Puerto Aguierre, we made today the very much feared (at least by me) 40 Miles and 13 hours trip from Puerto Aguierre to Bahya Bueno Suceso, mostly along cliffs with no landing possibilities ...

Aside a teaming sea lion colony of appr 200 smelly and most investigative cuties, Bahya Buenbo Suceso features a radar station of the Chilean Armanda, a building pf appr 3-4 sea containers, with 6 Armada people lioving there .. in addition to the crew of the station, we got greeted on the beach by the 3 Argentinian kayakers from the "Facing The Wind" expedition, with whom we are emailing for the past 3-4 months ... we finally net here at this most unusual outpost, and they insisted we stay an extra day with them tomorrow ... the Armada personnel welcomed us with the same warmth, making us tea and dinner.

Our stay in Puerto Aguirre was a great rest, aside from collecting firewood adn watching horses makew love in front o fthe kichen window, and was rounded off by a dinner invitation of a round the world sailing yacht, which moored as the sole ship in Puew rto Aguierre, and I paddled over to have beer and dinner with Peter and Carl from Holland (Biff was busy packing and writing her journal) ...

We will post later more,! And hopefully also pictures ...