I fill up with 100 gallons of overpriced island gasoline, check the oil and motor north out of Kodiak’s busy fishing harbor under the warm afternoon sun. Hallo Bay shows up as a point on my GPS chart 63 miles distant. What could possibly go wrong?
It’s a long list, and I try not to dwell on the particulars, instead watching for fin whales in the passage around Spruce Island, and dodging the otters floating on their backs, feeding on shellfish.
Running toward the mouth of Kupreanof Strait, the land slips away. Snow and glacier-covered peaks line half of the distant horizon, fading away as the Alaska Peninsula bends westwards toward the Aleutians. The enormity of this place is starting to sink in.
There’s a stiff westerly blowing in off Shelikof Strait. It’s 35 miles across open water to Hallo Bay, and 40 back to Kodiak and the quiet safety of harbor. A lone whale breathes six, seven times before sliding beneath the surface. I’m waiting for a sign, but there’s only the slap of the ocean against the boat’s hull.
We spotted a group of pilot whales and dolphins cutting through the water and headed their way. Dropping down the dive ladder into the cool Pacific, it came as something of a surprise when a group of humpback whales roared past.
A cow and calf swam past, followed by a jostling, aggressive collection of males set on separating the pair and breeding with the female. One of the biggest males circled around, took aim and swam toward me. I kicked back furiously, trying to clear make room. He raced past, rolling his body at the last minute to avoid slamming into me with his dorsal fin.
If it was a warning, it certainly worked. I gave the whales a very wide berth for a very long time.
Stuck in traffic at the ideological intersection of Avenidas Karl Marx and Ho Chi Minh, I'm trying to follow Mozambique's vague rightward turn into its uncertain future. Post-colonial success story, or just another African playground to the world.
With a cool breeze rustling the palm trees overhead, I finish the last of my calamari and my second Dos M beer. At the next table, a chubby Portuguese expat picks at his teeth and paws a schoolgirl companion, gripping her chin without affection, then rustling her hair like a dog's. I can almost hear her teeth gritting, but she betrays nothing and goes back to idly typing a text message on her cellphone.
Rudyerd Bay is at once amazing and despoiled. Utterly wild and roadless and left to its own soggy devices, Misty Fjords is a largely forgotten corner of the world. Vast granite wall and inviolate forests. Bear and salmon, wolf and eagle.
And floatplanes.
Dozens of roaring, buzzing, deafening and disruptive avian invaders. Cruise ships disgorge tourists by the thousand, and they dutifully crowd onto small planes to roar around the wilderness. Sitting with a young grizzly bear, I watched as he was buzzed every few minutes by yet another low-flying Cessna or Beaver. He looked up from his grassy lunch trying to find the source of this infernal, deafening roar.
Driving and more driving, and more driving still. I’ve had lots of time to firm up my opinions on Patagonia, and they’re not as flattering as they might once have been. Flat. Windswept. Uninhabitable. Montana without the mountains. Wyoming without the skiing. La Cuarenta has left me with a rattling car and fraying nerves. In a fit of anger this morning I gave the car a stern kick, stoving in the front quarter panel and rendering the passenger door unusable.
2500 km down the road and still precious little to show for my troubles beyond a growing repair bill.
I’ve dreamed of coming to Peninsula Valdes for more than a decade. so here I am. Sitting in a crowded restaurant listening to Brits on package tour do a Sound of Music singalong. I try to take what comfort I can in that my countrymen are for once not the biggest assholes in the room.
