Location 34° 36S, 58° 22W
Tuesday 12.18.2007

The Schooner Maggie B remains safely tied up the the Puerto Madero Yacht Club at 34° 36S, 058° 22W. The YCPM isn’t really a yacht club, it is a floating function room (weddings, corporate meetings, etc.) with a small marina. The facilities are fine and the administration is eager and helpful, but there is no “Members Bar” where you can go and find fellow seafarers. I suspect that the YC Argentino is the place to be for that.

But in many ways Buenos Aires isn’t really a seafaring town. Yes, it is on a historic estuary, but there is about 100 NM of dirty brown 20 foot deep water before you get anything really like the open ocean. One clear sign is that even the biggest boat here in the marina has only perhaps a 30 pound Danforth anchor. Clearly they never go anywhere.

Buenos Aires is very cosmopolitan, very European. No indian faces anywhere, even in the tough parts of town. Yes, some gypsies from time to time, either ten year olds playing the accordion or a 12 year old with a baby in arms, but all the faces are Spanish, English or Italian.

This Puerto Madero area is the old, old dock yards. Built about 1890 but superseded by more modern cargo handling systems in 1930. It was left relatively abandoned from 1930 (a bad year) to ten years ago when the City and Federal governments got together and developed what is now the hottest area in BA. Our walkway to the boat isn’t illuminated by flood lights or the half full moon, it is the AON, ABN-AMRO and NORTEL signs. The restaurants are great and varied, but it is a bit unsettling to be only a week away from Cape Horn and have a TGIFridays, Bice and Hooters nearby. But, with help, we have found the Argentinean ones. There is really only one acceptable thing to order in restaurants, though, carne. I was in an Italian restaurant and ordered a Caprese salad, and a seafood risotto, with a nice bottle of Sauvignon blanc and the waiter and then the Captain, tried to talk me into a steak and a bottle of Malbec. What was I thinking?? Maybe two days of steak was all I could handle?

It is interesting to compare Chile and Argentina. Not fair, as Buenos Aires is the Washington and NY City of Argentina, where Puerto Montt is the ….. Newark/Jacksonville of Chile. But you get a sense. In Chile you saw signs of permanence and stability. It clearly was going to work out and get better gradually. In Argentina, it seems more fragile. Maybe it will work, maybe there will be the next crisis — tomorrow, next week or next year, but coming, for sure. Argentina is a “make hay while the sun shines,” Chile seems more…Lutheran.

NorthSails, Argentina is going to check out all our patches tomorrow and we need a diesel mechanic to slove Onan generator problems, but generally we are in good shape.

Hannah, Alden and Frank leave tomorrow for their homes for the holidays, Freddy left today. Curtis is going to stay with the boat and roam Argentina a bit. There probably won’t be a regular update until January 15th, when the crew for the next leg convenes. The next big challenge is where we should have the Maggie B for Carnival.

All is well.