Boring? No – never! When the season winds down, and we have had our fill of penguins, whales, and icebergs (which by the way never manage to grow boring) life and sailing stays incredibly exciting – as the title suggests – helicopters, search and rescue, and the Volvo race have all played a part of our lives in the last few days. So… where are we, are where have we been?
We ended our season in Ushuaia, after our last trip, ending on March 1st. Just before the end of the March, we departed Ushuaia with good friends of ours and Dave Roberts, Captain of Ocean Tramp next year, for Puerto Williams Chile. Puerto Williams was a great few days, but I will have to wait for another blog post to expand on our days there. After a few days in Chile, including two great nights at Lakutaia Lodge and a fantastic hike up Bandera (flag) hill, we (Fede, Laura and Dave) set sail for the Falklands / Malvinas. The weather was pretty much spot on and we had a pleasant sail east towards the Falklands. A few whales, a few good moon rises, and then, as we were along the south coast of East Falklands, we got a call over the radio “Ocean Tramp, Ocean Tramp, this is Orca one, search and rescue Helicopter.”…. We moved to working channel 67 and they continued the conversation “Ocean Tramp, do we have permission to approach and perform training with your vessel?” I replied with the height of our mast (22m above seal level) and our current sail plan (main and mizzen). The Search and Rescue (SAR) helicopter, identified as “Orca one”, then approached Ocean Tramp from the stern. For a while the helicopter hovered about 10 m behind the stern and we watched as the side door opened and 3 helmeted heads loomed over. We watched as they conversed on how they might carry out a rescue. “Ocra one” then called down, “we will approach closer, if we affect your sails, please inform us”. And approach they did – it seemed they were nearly directly overhead our mizzen sail (the back sail) and they hovered for about 5 minutes as they practiced and evaluated options. They then backed off, but then approached and backed off two more times. After nearly 45 minutes with Orca One, they called down to say their training was complete. We then invited them to visit the vessel the next day in Stanley, which they accepted! We then, cheekily asked them for a few photos (to be posted when we have faster internet!).
The door opened once again and out came a camera! After a fly by, they then veered off to the north. The next day, a crew of three swung by the boat – we gave them a tour and a bit of a debrief. They told us how they would have done a rescue – off of windward – port side, mid-ships. We also fed back that the radio comms were a bit hard to hear and in an emergency, would have been difficult. They took the feedback gracefully and invited to us to visit their helicopter… stay tuned for that visit.
What? Didn’t’ we mention the Volvo race? Stay tuned for super exciting updates on the crew that demasted and is here in Stanely…..
