Ferry Esperanza

I am writing this on my bunk aboard the Esperanza (“Hope”), the flagship of the Navimag ferry company currently about to depart Puerto Montt for Puerto Natales, four days journey south of here. 

Rusty the trooper managed the difficult stair gratings out of the car deck and settled immediately on his bed. 

Supposedly the ship leaves at 7 and once we lose the cell signal we will be out of touch until sometime on Thursday evening. Between now and then we will be navigating the fjords and some open ocean through southern Chile. 

We drove up to the ferry after they weighed and measured the van.  We spent a couple of hours at the check in waiting while the trucks and trailers were loaded first into the bowels of the ship. 

Rusty had no idea this was his last roll in the grass for four days but he took full advantage of it enjoying the sun. 

They weighed us at 9325 pounds close enough to the factory fully laden weight of 9400 pounds. The fee for the van is $500. 

After they gave us the go ahead we drove down to the ship from the weighing area where they told us to turn around. The van in front of us was dropping off foot passengers and after he got outbid the way I reversed into the darkness. 

They nudged us over to the side and before we got out we were getting strapped into place. This journey may be quite calm or quite fierce and there’s no way of knowing how it will go. 

Our batteries are fully charged and we only have a few bottled items in the fridge so we will see how well they last in four days of darkness. We aren’t allowed on the car deck during the journey. 

We saw no other overland vehicles on the dock or in the ship probably because this isn’t a cheap ride and most people take the scenic land route south of Puerto Montt. We plan to check some of it out in the summer on our way north. The appeal of the ferry was just too much. 

Rusty did not like the steps but he got up them unassisted. 

Then we sat through the tail end of a safety briefing. Wear a life jacket. Ask the crew for advice. Drown like a gentleman.  Actually a few months ago the ferry ran aground on the tip of an island and made the news as it waited for the tide. These are treacherous waters. 

The other travelers shuffle around and don’t make eye contact. We smile and say hi! just to confound them. This is our four berth cabin. 

With reading light and (220 volt) plug: 
This is our private toilet and shower: 

To bring Rusty in the cabin and not have him travel caged as cargo we had to rent a whole cabin. We wanted a room with a window which goes for about $650 a berth. There are four berths in an AA cabin so we are paying $2500 for our trip. Meals are included you’ll be happy to hear. With GANNET2 the total is about $3000.  We folded the upstairs bunks to have a little more headroom. 

The cheapest berths are about $550 and there are eight of them in a cabin with no windows.  There is also one suite but we missed the reservation or we’d have taken that. There are no balconies. No alcohol is allowed on the ship and smoking is on outside decks only. 

For just the two of us and Rusty our cabin is very pleasant, the bunks are comfortable and we are settled in for a stress free ride 1200 miles to Puerto Natales. If we do get anyone signal on the way I shall try to take advantage of it but I expect to post something by Friday. We have a campground reserved in the town when we arrive to give us time to stock the refrigerator and get ready to see some penguins on our way to Punta Arenas. 

They are announcing dinner service.

I should probably get going. See you soon. 

On The Road

This has been a tough week, and I can say that now, as my head cold is on the way out, my stress levels are down and our van, the redoubtable GANNET2 is whole once more. All three things are undoubtably related and made worse by our ferry deadline Monday.  We are ready to go with 24 hours to spare. This is the hero of this story:

Konstantin - “I am not an electrician” - but who has the mind of an investigative logical scientist figured out how to repair our second alternator, the one that charges our house batteries.

His father maintained the electric tram fleet in what was then Leningrad and he has learned how to deal with electro mechanics from a good teacher apparently. His hometown changed names with the new political era and became St Petersburg once again but he and his wife, a Microsoft employee emigrated to Seattle. Lucky for me they did.  

It happened three weeks ago that I noticed our engine was no longer charging our house batteries, those are the ones we use to run our living quarters in the van, the ones we use for lighting cooking and heating or cooling. At first I mistakenly though it was an inverter/ charger problem but an investigation by a camper manufacturer in Puerto Montt revealed the alternator had blown its regulator. 

We ordered a replacement from the very helpful folk at Nation’s in Missouri and Layne flew to Key West to pick up the tiny part. We also ordered a second one again a future breakage.

Adam, owner of Nation’s Starters and Alternator put together a package of new parts for us to refresh the installation and all I had to do was go back to the mechanic to do the installation. 

That was where the wheels came off. We had an appointment Friday and when I  showed up the shop was closed. Friday as the last day we could cancel the ferry and only lose $1,000 of the three thousand dollar boat tickets…after that we either ride or forfeit the entire fee. Decisions, decisions and I said we go for it. At worst we can get the alert alternator repaired in Punta Arenas after the ferry ride. The van runs fine without the second alternator but we can only charge the house batteries with solar or by plugging in to an outlet. 

It was a long frustrating rigmarole but I got the alternator back by Friday afternoon from the electricians shop where the imbecile mechanic had forgotten to pick it up despite our so called appointment to install it. I had everything we needed except the know how to install it. What to do? 

I had a stroke of genius at that point, or possibly in an act of desperation I asked Konstantin if he could help. He’s one of those overlanders who built his own van buys parts and installs them himself and has the sort of mechs I am self reliance that is outside the grasp of a thinker like myself. We drive over to his campground on the edge of a lake on a sunny Friday afternoon. 

He got stuck in while I watched coughing and sniffling. Julia came to help her spouse who issued terse instructions in expletive laden (apparently) Russian. 

He couldn’t finish the job Friday and we got together again Saturday when he finally figured out the problem. I shall skip the long story of  a lot of trial and error and testing and puzzling the problem; it turned out that when the regulator broke a fuse also blew to protect the circuit so after tracing the wiring and using Nation’s very helpful online troubleshooting guide Konstantin figured it out. We have amps! 

It’s possible I suppose a dedicated local electrician could have figured it out and if it happens again I would be a much more useful guide but Konstantin’s attention to detail gives me confidence that we will travel with plenty of electricity from here. 

I will say that Patagonia Campers Chile who build RVs in Puerto Montt gave us some useful help when their electrical guy explained the shortcomings of our battery bank using mixed battery sizes. Our 100amp battery was suppressing our two 250 amp batteries so he removed it and our storage capacity seems to have jumped. Our solar panels are charging more strongly we have paradoxically increased our capacity with 100 fewer amps. So that was one good outcome. 

I carried a spare water pump as I know they give out and ours started to show signs of failing as it kept losing small amounts of pressure. I got it replaced and my neighbor Christoph showed me his trucks for setting the pressure for best performance. I learned something else. And all this while we were waiting for the ferry do we have not actually lost any time.

Konstantin and Christoph enjoying the moments after technical job well done while Julia and Layne menu plan for our last meal together Sunday before we get on the boat and the Russians go south on the highway and the Germans get their missing part back from customs hopefully next week. 

Monica and Christoph’s Unimog expedition vehicle wrecked its rear drive shaft and a new one has been sent from Germany but getting it out of customs is proving to be a problem. It’s seven feet long and weighs 250 pounds so you can’t smuggle it in as Layne did with our parts…

We all break down from time to time. Everyone has stories and all of them suck. This time we’ve been lucky. I hope our luck holds.

These are the Instagram accounts of our friends and neighbors here. Overlanders use Instagram and WhatsApp to keep in touch in this modern era. 

 Some photos from our recent drives around town:

Llanquihue on the lake:

Puerto Montt:

More Puerto Montt: 

When the sun shines it’s beautiful around here. 

Another typical street in middle class Puerto Montt: 

More ferries to come: 

I’ve spent enough time in Puerto Montt and I’m ready to jump out too. 

Thanksgiving

Yesterday was very odd as we were the only people at Lider shopping for Thanksgiving. Imagine that, no crowds no frenzied pursuit of anything. 

Monica the German overlander had never had marshmallows (“Marva”) so Layne asked and the employee in proper Walmart style led us to them. Today is Black Friday in the US. “El Black” is a new three week tradition in Chile apparently:  

Walmart bought Lider (pronounced “leader”) in 2009 but for a lot of things Layne prefers Jumbo for its selection. However this store is on the edge of town with easy parking.  Rusty took a short walk and unimpressed retreated to the bed. 

Google maps listed this place as aJumbo supermarket so we wasted some time checking it out and I wasted some sending in a correction to Google. 

We were a group of six for dinner, two Russians from Seattle, a German, an Austrian, Layne the Jew and me the mutt. A perfect mix for this holiday.  

Julia, Monica, Christoph, Konstantin and me taking the picture.

The dishes were not necessarily traditional but they did the job. 

He got more chicken than he could eat of course: 

And thanks to Layne’s ingenuity we had a memorable evening. It was what we needed.