Note we do not have any financial arrangements or other interests in any the products mentioned here!
For just about every question, there are almost as many different opinions as there are sailors. And, most of these different opinions are in fact valid for the specific individual with their particular boat and their unique mission. That said, below are our opinions based on our experiences to date. We reserve the right to change them, or even admit they are wrong, at any later date :)
2. Have you encountered any pirates?
3. What are your favorite places?
40. What's the best route and timing to get to Chile?
42. Are we going to the Antarctic?
Also see: Favorite Places & Other Places
No. True piracy is pretty rare and mostly limited to the area around the Horn of Somalia. There are thugs and thieves in more places but you deal with them just like you do ashore - don't go to bad areas and certainly not after dark; keep a low profile and don't flash your wealth around. We have only had three minor bad experiences. In Iceland, someone came on board one night and stole our American flag. I have always figured it was some college students making a statement. In Fiji, a pair of flip-flops went missing from our dinghy, but we mentioned it to the village chief and they were returned the next day. In Costa Rica, someone stole the oars out of our dinghy when it was pulled up on the beach 50 yards from and in plain view of a police station.
However, there is trouble around Somalia. You can get a weekly official update at http://www.icc-ccs.org/prc/piracyreport.php Top of Page
Click on Favorites. Top of Page
Click on Where to Next. Top of Page
If your interest is in Cape Horn, the Beagle Canal (which is one of the most spectacular section of all the canals), Antarctica, and S. Georgia then the best choice is to come down the east coast of South America (along Argentina), through the Straits of La Maire and into the Beagle arriving at Puerto Williams around Christmas. Sailing along the Argentinean coast you can have quite strong winds but they will typically be blowing right off the beach so if you stay close to shore you can reach along in relatively flat water. There are decent harbors along most of the route in case of really bad weather.
However, if you are interested in exploring more of the channels than just the Beagle, in seeing the Castro/Puerto Montt area in the north, or in going into the Pacific, then the choice is not as clear. The winds in the channels are almost entirely from the north. Even when it's blowing from the southwest offshore, the Andean mountain chain will bend the winds so they are blowing down the channels from the north. In one two-month period in the channels we had only two days of southerly winds. From Puerto Williams (at the southern end of the channels) to Puerto Montt/Castro (at the northern end of the channels) is approximately 1,100 miles and it will be almost entirely upwind (often into 20-30 knots) and up current. It is mostly in quite protected channels and the water is usually flat (without big waves). A boat that goes to windward well and a crew that has a lot of patience can sail the route, however there are paperwork difficulties with a slow trip because you are only issued a three-month visa with no easy way to renew it in the channels. But all the crews we know that intended to do it under sail gave up, either exiting the channels very early and sailing offshore to Puerto Montt or turning on their engines (most people motor somewhere between 50% - 80% of the way on a northbound trip).
Those who choose to sail down the east coast of South America do have one other option if they wish to make a northbound trip, and that is to make the voyage in the winter. In most years, the weather is actually more settled in the winter months than the summer months, though the storms that do come through can be more intense. Friends of ours who have made the trip north in May, June and July have had much shorter, colder days, and have found many of the glacier and freshwater anchorages frozen and unapproachable. But they have also had more light winds and calm days, and some periods of easterly wind which almost never occurs in the summer months. But the weather varies more year to year than season to season, so you do run the risk of arriving in a bad year and having to fight your way north even in the winter.
It is much easier to enjoy exploring the Chilean channels when southbound, and not fighting the wind and current every day. There are two alternatives from the Pacific that accomplish this: (1) Going down the Pacific coast (Ecuador, Peru, & Northern Chile) will be upwind in light winds much of the way, with reasonably light winds and seas until the last 400 miles where it can get very ugly (big offshore ocean waves and swell on the nose and very strong & rapidly changing winds). There are stops along the coast about every 200-400 miles. This is the route of choice if you have quite a bit of time to coastal hop (perhaps five months), wait for weather, and a strong enough engine to push through big seas in the last 400 miles. It's best to time this to arrive in Puerto Montt around Christmas. A friend who just completed this trip put 585 hours on the engine (Panama to Puerto Montt). (2) If none of those options sound attractive and you have a typical sailboat engine/prop (e.g. don't motor into waves very well) and want to get to Chile relatively quickly/directly, then the route for you is to sail from Panama out to about Easter Island and then back into to Puerto Montt. This takes you around the S. Pacific high, with winds as favorable as possible. From Panama to Easter Island you will be mostly close hauled/close reaching, mostly in light winds, and then mostly broad reaching/running in much stronger winds from Easter to Puerto Montt. This is a much better sailing route than #1, but it is a longish offshore passage (between 3,500 and 4000 miles), there is a lot of wind forward of the beam to get to Easter Island and then it is a deep-water mid-latitude offshore route where the weather can get quite tough.
Chile is a difficult place to get to by any of these routes, which is one of the reasons that the sailors who have made the effort required to get there are a special bunch. Top of Page
No, we believe that tourists should not go to the Antarctic. It should be left as the one last pristine place on the planet. We believe only a very few (say 25 at a time) select scientist should be allowed there. During our time cruising we have seen the Galapagos opened to tourism and ruined. The same thing is happening right now to the Antarctic. Our not going will have no real effect on the situation (there is simply too much money involved for the tourism to be stopped), but we will not participate in or contribute to destroying this last pristine spot on the planet. Top of Page
“Remember that happiness is a way of travel - not a destination.”
'Happiness is a how, not a what; a talent, not an object,"