Kayaking trip

Having promised a birthday and Christmas present to one another for some time now we finally decided on a kayak trip into the Bernard O'Higgins park which is just on the edge of Torres. Why we thought this was a good idea I'm not quite sure because having seen what the wind was like on our Torres trek the thought of actually being out on the water suddenly seemed quite daft! So having spent a few days in Puerto Natales waiting for a clear couple of days we finally headed off along with a very typically American American (everything was awesome and sweet and no way!) and our guide German (he wasn’t German he was called German!). First obstacle was getting into drysuits, this wasn’t easy and it felt like you had to be a contortionist to do so – Shona actually managed to punch herself in the face trying! Once we'd finally got them on we loaded up the kayaks with tents, food, spare clothes and any other gear we needed and set off into the park. The scenery was amazing, we had a view of the 3 tower peaks of Torres behind us, mountains to the side, clowns to left of us… ok may be not!… and an endless river in front to paddle down. We paddled for around 2 hours before our first stop and this was to avoid a small waterfall, as fun as it looked to try and go down it this was probably the safer option. So having carried the kayaks overland for 200 meters or so it was also a good time to stop for lunch. Quick sarnie and we were off again, we were hoping to cover another 40km but as the afternoon went on the wind started to pick up making it more and more difficult! After a few hairy moments of getting caught in rips of adjoining rivers, being spun around lots by the wind and just struggling to paddle into the now nearing 100km winds (at one point Shona was paddling with all her might and was not actually moving!) German decided it was time to stop for the day. So instead of the nice campsite we were heading for we just picked a point along the shore, found a small clearing in the trees and set up our tents for the night! Had a lovely pasta dinner that took about 2 hours to cook because of the wind, all shared 2 bottles of wine (for warmth sake of course) and spoke about Germans adventures in a kayak (he’d solo kayaked to cape horn – nutter!) and the scary prospect of trying to kayak tomorrow if the weather didn’t improve! We tried to get as much sleep as possible that night but with the wind shaking the tent and the trees creaking and swaying above you this was a little difficult, plus the fact we'd managed to pitch our tent over a tree root that was poking places you don’t want tree roots poking! Crawled out of the tent around 8ish to find that things hadn’t got any better so we waited around as long as possible and German even thought of calling a boat down to try and help us before he finally convinced us that it was time to go and we'd be ok… just paddle close to the shore and don’t let the wind flip you over – great! The first hour or so was pretty hard going but we finally made it to a sheltered area where the water was nice and calm and the wind died down meaning we could relax and enjoy the scenery and the rest of our paddle. Reached the end of the river and the entrance to a fjord around midday but the wind out in the middle was still too strong meaning that we couldn’t attempt to kayak out on to it and over to the glacier! Instead though we jumped out of the kayaks and by foot quickly trekked to a viewing point before running back to catch a boat back to Puerto Natales – we’d had such a cool adventure if not a little scary at times!