Welcome to Curtis’ blog!

Chemist by schooling, builder by training, stubborn and somewhat irreverent by birth, I’ve been a forklift operator, concrete flatworker, printing factory grunt, lawn god (actual job description), DOE researcher, strawbale house builder, farmer, aspiring writer, commercial fisherman, and busboy.

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Location 35° 12S, 56° 59W
Saturday 12.15.2007

At noon on December 15th, The Schooner Maggie B was at 35°12S, 56°59W. We are at the corner of Canal Punte Indio and Canal Intermedio, in the Rio Plata estuary, about 75 NM from Buenos Aires. The wind is from due south at 15 knots, and we are sailing with one reef in the main and our G2 Gennaker, “The Bird” up.

We have come 1540 NM from Puerto Williams.

The bay or estuary here has us all astounded. We have been sailing for a day, mostly outside of sight of land, in water between 20 and 50 feet. This is after being in the Chilean canals, where you can be in 500 feet of water 200 feet from land. There is a main ship channel that is dredged for the big boats all the way to….27 feet. The chart shows dozens and dozens of ship wrecks, most all with the name of the sunk ship. We go by the Astarso, Carumbe, Roco, Pingo, Calipso, Hierro Belgiano, Rio Santiago, Barcozo, and many, many more.

We are running later than I was hoping. We may not get into Buenos Aires until 11 PM or midnight. We are late for two reasons. One is I underestimated the current of the Rio Plata. Right now we have full flood with us, and the tide about balances the outgoing dark brown river current. When the tide was ebbing, we had about a knot and a half against us.

The more serious reason for being late is that we are now down to our fuel reserves, the 10 gallons in jerry cans. We are saving that until we get close, perhaps the last 30 NM (10 gallons = 40 liters = 60 NM at 6 knots). While we are sailing well, and we are sailors, after all, I had counted on motor sailing to hit the timing. I made the mistake of forgetting to write down the engine time when we refueled in Puerto Williams. I underestimated the distance we would end up covering from Puerto Williams, which will end up being 1600 NM. Then we used the engine a lot coming up the coast, more than we needed to, to help keep warm and to speed our arrival in BA. Finally, I didn’t take into account the use of diesel by the heater, which was low flow, but used 24 hours/day for a week. All in all, we ran the main tanks dry 125 NM from our destination. Thanks goodness we are a sailboat. Why don’t you have fuel gauges, you ask? We do, “Acu-gage Ultra-8″ - it says both fuel tanks are full.
I’m sure that my loving, faithful crew (especially Alden) will never, ever, let me forget this.

We are hoping that Buenos Aires is a “late” town.

All is well (really!).