DownWest
Well-Known Member
Oh Wandsy! Another of your dreams shattered.....

Oh well always fancied the name…..Sting even wrote a song about it!Oh Wandsy! Another of your dreams shattered.....
Not particularly inviting waterfront viewAbout as far south as I have seen people swimming is Antofagasta - I've swum there. Mejillones ditto. A bit further north Iquique - another sailing ship port from the good old days of the nitrate trade - I remember it well - is a major holiday destination for Bolivians and people from western Brasil. The swimming there is seriously good.
I can recommend it to Wansy and others as a good destination.
Oh and also these places aren't on the edge of the Atacama - they are in the Atacama.
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Beats BognorNot particularly inviting waterfront view
Beats Bognor
Read a novel a long time ago. Bloke in some place in the SOF, had a rough small boat and was dreaming of cruising to Valparaiso. Details a bit absent now but after some hassle, he set off in the unprepared boat, The 'hassle' had the mlitary chasing him and they shelled him. Sunk..Oh well always fancied the name…..Sting even wrote a song about it!
The margin is fine though....Beats Bognor
Sounds more exotic than BognorThe margin is fine though....
Is the seawater cold?It's that bad its good. Major railhead for cargo into and out of Bolivia and western Brazil, a huge but derelict railway workshop. Nada mas.
One building of note - the port captain's.
Major point about this coast - no crowds.
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We definitely fall into the has-beens bracket: 2003-11 we sailed UK to/around the Med for 7 months of each year returning home to work the winters, before buying a bigger (35') boat in Greece and heading west: Atlantic - S America - Caribbean - USA - back to Caribbean/Panama - Pacific Islands. We were visiting home when Covid arrived and the boat was in NZ; we've not done any serious sailing since and I don't anticipate that changing....out there cruising right now. As opposed to dreaming about it or reminiscing about a trip they did thirty years ago...
Yup, Covid was a bitch. Pretty much everything stopped for me except the ageing process.We definitely fall into the has-beens bracket: 2003-11 we sailed UK to/around the Med for 7 months of each year returning home to work the winters, before buying a bigger (35') boat in Greece and heading west: Atlantic - S America - Caribbean - USA - back to Caribbean/Panama - Pacific Islands. We were visiting home when Covid arrived and the boat was in NZ; we've not done any serious sailing since and I don't anticipate that changing.
I'm battling to declutter my life.Ain’t that the truth though?
“Men and boats rot in harbour”
So, I suppose a simple small boat remains “ small boat, small problem”
I read my way as a kid through the great French sailors’ writings of self reliance and simplicity .
And I loved the idea of the philosophy
If it breaks throw it out!
Have any of us really managed to simplify and de clutter our complex cruising floating machines though for every long?
I’ve always raised the waterline on new to me boats- and then battled to stay under it!I'm battling to declutter my life.


Great pictures,not at all off topic,news of rarely visited places are very welcome…….even if Idontget out the riaMoving right along and heading right off topic once again.
This is for Wandsy.
Previous pics showed murky water - I thought it was industrial pollution at the time but was some dying sea creatures.
Normally looked like this first pic... my Belgian crew mate Tin Tin with Snowy.
In the background a Lancha Chilota which had somehow found its way up north and which I actually got to sail on.View attachment 190124View attachment 190125