Winter in Argentina

Club San Fernando, Buenos Aires, Argentina

We've been enjoying the mild winter here after five winters in Maine, though we do miss the snow. When the temperature gets around 60 degrees the locals are wearing what we would wear in 30 degree weather. It's all relative.

Our original slip at the Club was on the island, across the river from the main Club facilities. We were tied to a bow mooring between two poles. About a month ago a German 66 ft. steel cutter came in and was moored also at the island. The owner, Wolf, and his wife Jeanette, a Venezuelan, are en route to Puerto Williams, Chile where Wolf runs sail charters around Cape Horn. They were able to move their boat after a week to the only dock on the island. A few weeks later a boat moved off the dock and they encouraged us to ask if we could move onto the dock. Since we will be leaving the first of September we were given permission to move. This has made doing the needed repairs and improvements to Tamara much easier. We can get on and off the boat without either calling the small launch or using our dinghy. And we have neighbors we can visit.

The island is quiet during the week but on the weekends the Parilla (bar-b-que) is open and many club members come over for lunch. It’s an opportunity for us to try and get to know some of the members and attempt (though very badly) to speak Spanish. In addition to the parilla on the island there are three other eating sites at the club. Saturdays can be quite busy with three or four fields being used for soccer, rugby or field hockey. The Club must have over a 1,000 members.

We hope to leave on another bus trip in about 10 days. We will first make a stop at Puerta Montt, Chile to visit an English couple me met in 2000 in Labrador and we hope to meet again in the Puerta Williams area as they head East and we head West. From there we will head directly to Salta, Argentina and explore the NW region.

Chow, Nancy and Mark