Leaving Bahia Ballenas

It was 7 in the morning, Matt was not feeling a lot better, but we needed to leave. There is one more factor to consider when getting or leaving some of the anchorages/ports; the tide levels and cycles.

The level; to get to Puntaarenas we had to make entrance to the channel at almost high tide. It is a very shallow channel. If we run aground, as the tide comes up the boat will be picked up, if we enter at high tide and run aground then we are…. SCRE.. out of Luck! The cycle; the office opens at 7 AM

Motor on, we are leaving, zigzagging our way out through the logs, lots of them. BANG, BOOM, ZUMP.. its hard to see them all. The motor alarm goes off! Matt’s level of stress goes up, I see the fumes, but I can almost understand it. I have so much faith that God would not give us challenges we can’t handle and that Matt is so capable to solve it, I remained calm. We turned off the motor, let the boat float while Matt checked the filters. Cleaned one of the filters and it seemed to be solved. It was a difficult decision, do we keep going? Do we turn around and make sure the problem is solved missing our chance to get to Punta Arenas on time? We risked it! We kept going. We made it to Isla San Lucas, where we would spend the night, an hour sail to Punta Arenas.