Robinson Crusoe
Have you read the book Robinson Crusoe, written by Daniel Defoe? I’m pretty sure that I haven’t, but if I did, it was definitely a long time ago.
I bring that up because, this being Dream Day, I was thinking about one of our potential stops on the way south to Patagonia, the Juan Fernandez Islands, the largest of which is called Robinson Crusoe Island.
The Juan Fernandez Islands lie 362 nm off the coast of Chile, and by my rough calculations, as the crow flies, a little over 2000 nm SSE of the Galapagos Islands. That’s a pretty significant passage, more than four times greater than anything we have done to date, and given the normal wind conditions, the actual sailing distance would likely end up being considerably more than that. If we do decide to go there, let’s hope that we don’t end up like the character in that book!
Just curious: Given the winds shown in your wind map, would it be easier to sail through Magellan’s straits in the other direction?
– Dave
I don’t think there is any easy way! 🙂
That said, to my knowledge, the prevailing winds down there are (north) westerly, not easterly as they are here. Noting, of course, that there are fronts that come through every few days which makes the wind shift direction. We’re also not just looking to transit Patagonia, we want to explore it. That means going through the Chilean canals, not the Straight of Magellan.