In the already four years that I am living onboard, we have covered many thousand miles already. I must say that the miles aren’t what counts, but the incredible corners of the world seen. All of which, take a whole different dimension when saw from a sailboat.

Just as anybody else. Our lives are close knit to everything that surrounds us in ways that are mostly unsuspected. If you and us were living in the same city, the same wind that you would probably hardly notice while at home, could make us wake up, check our anchor lines, or even leave in search of a better mooring. In our case, our boat is like a big cradle, which protects us, but also keeps us in contact with the world in a tangible, intimate, vital way. In fact, I really think that it is the nature of this relationship with the outside world what lets us enjoy in a unique way all the places where we have been. Each with its own singularities, its people, its fauna, its weather, and its silences.

In all these years we have seen so many places, lived so many experiences. Like when we were surrounded by hundreds of dolphins, playing for hours around the boat. It was a morning, near the Valdez peninsula, in the Argentinean coast. My morning watch had just started. Everything was quiet, so I started to make pancakes for breakfast. Then Pascal got up to take a look outside. Immediately he called me saying, “we are surrounded by dolphins”. I took a look and saw them, countless dolphins all over, from stem to stern. Then I ran to wake up the girls, knowing that usually these spectacles don’t last much. But this time was different; they kept us company for hours. They were divided in groups of five or six, and there were such groups as far as we could see. Every one was jumping in a different way. While some of them got out from the water with great strength, jumping forward and “landing” on their backs and keeping swimming that way, with small movements, taking advantage of the waves before starting another jump, while others went up from the water practically vertically, before returning almost the same manner. Some of them preferred to go down on their sides. At the end, even a small sea lion joined that huge party. That day we didn’t covered too many miles, but we enjoyed a spectacle which, in absence of better words, was truly unique.

We have shared unforgettable moments with friends. Like when in “Caleta Hornos” (Horn Cove). We were approaching at night, close to 3:00 a.m. There was complete silence over the bow. The hull gentle grubbing with the water was the only noise that could be heard. The entrance was very narrow, the night was serene. We were all on deck, nobody wanted to lose the smallest detail. Pascal, at the wheel, asked for someone to light towards the shore, which we all could feel how close it was. The beam of the light was then going over the surface where, at some distance, we could see tiny dots that appeared to be illuminated. We couldn’t figure out what was that phenomena, the dots appeared to be still, the looked as many stars right above the surface. When the beam of light finally reaches them, in a magnificent choreography each and every one of the hundreds on seagulls that were sleeping started to fly. This unique gift of nature was completed with the splendid orchestration of the seagulls singings, which was in crescendo by the time a new bird took off. The birds were literally making a merry-go-round above the boat while entering the small fiord that was the cove (small wide-wise, but with walls of more than 150 feet). At dawn, we “rediscovered” this wonderful place. We found a small beach among the huge walls of the fiord and disembarked. Went up to the plains of virgin lands and saw a couple of “Guanacos” (small Patagonian camelid, smaller than the Peruvian Llama), which surprised by our presence, ran off. Form the cliff, we could see the boat at anchor, and the magnificent entrance of the cove, with its zig-zaging wall.

Or maybe a friend of mine was right when she said that we travel to “another reality” when she joined us to Antarctica. You can feel it after leaving behind the Cape Horn, with a strange sensation of leaving that very last small piece of land that connects us with the “known world”, with the continent from which it detaches. In front of us there was nothing else but the Ocean, the only thing that fills our days until destination. After the five days that took us to get there, we could notice that there was practically no night at all.

We reached Decepción Island The picture was surrealistic, the coastline of black sand beaches was slowly coming out from its eternal mist. Once there, walking over the volcanic stones, covered with seaweeds of many colors, we could see the wooden remainings of old shipwrecks with enormous whale bones and skeletons. We were “hosted” by a group of “Papua” penguins and some sea lions resting on the beach. After a small hike, we found ourselves among the nests of “checker petrels”, which receive their name because the white and black disposition of their feathers, resembling a checkers table.

The island has the form of a ring, and in the highest part there is one of the biggest gatherings of penguins in the area. It is December, so we were able to watch the eggs hatching.

Once “recovered” from the visit to the island, we left anchor and continued toward the peninsula. There we go, from one “anchorage” to another (in fact, most of the time we set anchor in the icebergs themselves), sailing among penguins “taking their baths”, other penguins playing on the slopes of the icebergs as big sledges. Seals taking their “siestas” on the ice. Some times the whales and the orcas swim so close to the boat that we can actually feel their breath and spray. The variety of birds is incredible, different kinds of petrels, seagulls, and the always solitaire albatross.

And the white. I’ve never seen so many tints and shades of white.

Sailing among the majesty and solemnity of the icebergs is difficult to express. Its strange but beautiful forms, like giants drifting sculptures, passing as we sail along. There, you prefer not to talk, just “be” there, and be part of it. Trying to be one with the surroundings, but the contrast is too strong, too obvious. What transmits to you that magical place is a sensation of peace and greatness.

To Antarctica, in many ways, the hardest part is not going there, is coming back

Cecilia Corradi
SV Fernande
July 2006

If you would like to experience your own "life aboard" or you would like to contact the author or crew, please visit them at www.fernandexp.com. Pascal, Cecilia, Malena and Catalina are always ready to share their stories.

Submitt your experiences: Mauri Pro Sailing invites you to share your sailing experiences with the rest of our community. If there is some insight that you might consider valuable to the rest of us, please send us your article with some pictures and we will publish it.