18. Glacier & Snowstorm

The storm starts the day after I arrive at an inlet named "Caleta Morning."

Wind mixed with snow rushes over the small inlet surrounded by mountains, creating a whistling sound and occasionally rattling the deck with hail. Waves from the Beagle Channel push into the inlet, causing Aomi to rock up and down. A blizzard must be raging in the channel.

According to the Pilot Chart (a meteorological map), the average wind speed at Cape Horn this month, April, is force six. This average means there can be light winds of force two, but it can also escalate to force ten, a fierce storm. Is it possible to sail around Cape Horn in such strong winds?

After about three days, the snowstorm subsides, and Aomi leaves the inlet and sails into the Beagle Channel. Darwin, famous for his theory of evolution, sailed through this channel on the HMS Beagle more than 150 years ago. How I dreamed of these days while studying the nautical chart before leaving Japan!

On both sides of the narrow waterway, mountains rise, and the blue of the glaciers is particularly vivid against the snow-covered slopes, all white from the previous day's storm. For over twenty kilometers, the Romanche Glacier, Alemania Glacier, Francia Glacier, Italia Glacier, and Holanda Glacier line up like a magnificent exhibition.

Although I've seen many glaciers since arriving in the Patagonian archipelago of Chile, every time I look at this peculiar blue color and mineral crystal-like cross-section, it somehow touches the depths of my heart.

The glacier melts, and the water forms waterfalls cascading down the mountainside in many places. I look through my binoculars and hold my breath. How many hundreds of meters high is it? The falling water seems to move in slow motion. The mountains, glaciers, and waterfalls are too immense to comprehend. I am so overwhelmed by the grand scale that my head spins, and I can't move for a moment.

In the evening, I arrive at Caleta Ferrari in Yendegaia Bay, 65 kilometers east. As usual, I drop the CQR anchor and check its holding power by pulling its rope with Aomi's hull using the engine. But the anchor slips on the seafloor, so I quickly pull it up onto the deck.

I find gray mud on the anchor's surface. The bottom should be mud, which is strange because the CQR anchor usually works well on a muddy bottom. Suspecting something is wrong, I try the Danforth anchor next, but it also slips. I pull it up and find mud on it as well.

No doubt, the anchors must have dug into the mud on the bottom, so there is no reason why they shouldn't work. What's happening? I have to hurry before it gets dark.

I observe the anchor carefully. I touch the mud on the surface and find it strangely soft. A small amount of hard mud is also on the anchor's fluke.

This means the mud on the bottom may be too soft to hold the anchor, but there seems to be hard mud underneath. The anchor penetrates the layer of soft mud and reaches the hard mud, but that mud is too hard for the anchor to bite into.

Finally, it's time for a Fisherman anchor with excellent holding performance; now is the moment to use the Paul Luke 40-pound anchor I purchased in San Francisco for the severe anchoring conditions in the Patagonian archipelago.

I connect 50 meters of rope to the anchor and drop it into the water. As expected, the anchor does not slip at all, even when pulled using the engine. It has dug firmly into the seafloor. I am no longer afraid that Aomi will be blown away. I can sleep well tonight.

This incident reminds me how difficult anchoring can be. Is it possible to anchor off Cape Horn and leave Aomi behind while rowing a small dinghy in a stormy sea with average force six winds? If I don't anchor perfectly, she will be swept away unmanned.

—I am planning to land alone at Cape Horn, one of the most treacherous places.