Mar del Plata, Argentina - 15 Nov, 2006
by Kate Laird

There hasn't been much to update lately as we have been settled in Mar del Plata doing office work! It is our last chance to catch up with office work for some time, and it has been six months since we have had regular Internet access and the chance to "sit in the office" even if the office is the chart table of the boat, running aground at low tide, and looking out at the J-24s sailing out of the tiny gap between us and the next-door boat.

Our neighboring cruising yachts are surprised when we say we haven't had WiFi Internet since we left the East Coast marinas in the States - they've found it "everywhere." Well, it hasn't yet reached Newfoundland, Greenland, or Scotland! (Fortunately, I think.)

After two months in Scotland, however, we discovered that we could have had Internet access in parts of Scotland in the same manner as the DeRidders did in their recent SetSail article, and it would have saved us a lot of Iridium bills. We had to do our entire Antarctic Permitting Application over the Iridium; it is quite breathtaking to download 130-page documents over the Iridium, even though Kate's father stripped the files down to bare text before sending them on. Next time we'll figure out how to get cell phone access.

Helen is having an intensive month of school, after a month off on the crossing, and before our charter season begins in January.

Mar del Plata is a good place for this stopover. Helen and Anna are delightedly watching the kids sailing in Optimists on the weekend. Hopefully we'll be able to have a visit here next year, and Helen and Anna might be able to join in. We've never seen a place where people sail so skillfully in and out of tight situations. The yacht basin is quite tight, and getting tighter as more cruising boats arrive, but no matter. We sometimes hear a flutter of sail outside - even when the wind is in the high 20s - and look up from the desk to see a J-24 skimming past the window, luffed up to just clear our hull. There is less than 25 feet between our boat and the next, and it's often upwind, so they've got to come in with enough speed to carry them past us even though they have to go head to wind about halfway down our length.

There is a covered market a few blocks away with bife chorizo steaks. A little farther along is another shop with homemade ice cream. There's a playground for Helen and Anna, a deserted beach that no one else seems to know about, and a line of shrubbery that houses a few hundred snails, several of which have been to visit Seal, before being released.

Seal gets visited by sea lions.

Across by the fishing port is a colony of male sea lions. This must be where the ones go who aren't big and strong enough to win harems. An enormous sea lion swims around the yachts most days, startlingly graceful for such a huge animal. The big males' necks are so overdeveloped that they sit with their heads back, noses pointing to the sky. Their thick necks must make it quite uncomfortable to bend their noses down to a more usual seal posture.

We're watching the weather, and hope to sneak out on the next weather window, though it doesn't look like it will be a very long one.

You can learn more about the Lairds and Seal at their website www.expeditionsail.com.