Wedding at the end of the world

"All the daring that were there that day had all brought their contribution to the big bonfire standing some yards away from the whalebone structure. A structure built like an arch. It was there the couple would meet and say their vows. The daring people waiting anxiously while the wind slowly picked up as the bonfire did. The snow slowly but steady started to come down from the skies. The temperature were dropping significantly as well, but the big bonfire helped us all keeping warm. The daring souls not only endured the weather at this time, but also the pandemic. This was a time of love, and not of covering ourselves in the event of the spread of the pandemic. What would the world be without love and sharing these moments of absolute beauty?

Under the big, whalebone structure of an arch, stood a man, fully dressed in red. Smiling and waiting. waiting for the couple to slowly emerge from the dark background behind us. None of us really knew what we were actually waiting for, apart from the wedding of course. But what was going to happen? When? The snow was starting to spread and covered the ground as a white blanket, as far as the eye could reach. Everywhere on this magical white carpet there stood figures, now fully white and no longer looking like they wore their own chosen clothing. Not any more.

A flute started singing in the wailing wind. A smooth and gentle tune. Not to much and not to strong. Barely to overcome the winds own tunes. The figures on the white ground started to look all around, back and forth. That was when we saw what was going to happen. Two dark figures, down the muddy trail leading here were approaching. Steadily and calm. Their capes, one in white, and not because of the snow, but actual white beautifully patterned white, and one in black, or as black as the snow allowed it to be. They came along an almost lit up muddy train. Small fires had, in our absence of looking, being lit up. They continued their walk, just a couple of meters apart with their capes, like a coordinated dance with the wind, blowing around them.

As they were closing in the more details to these figures we could all see. The figure all dressed in black came in to the light of the bonfire, the hood over his head barely showed his long beard, partly braided and with a big smile on his face while the two figures separated to go around the mass of people waiting for them. A grand and tall man it was! On the other side of the crowd, barely visible from my point of view, a white figure was approaching as well. Beautiful and with the long cape and hood as well barely showing who it was, be we all knew by this time. Her hands were holding twigs with the only flowers allowed to be plucked at this time of a year. Her necklace shining bright in the shimmering from the fire. A "Vejvisr". A symbol of navigation, an old viking symbol of guidance. It was guiding them both towards the man dressed fully in red. She smiled as they both arrived at the arch...

The bonfire made sparkling sounds when the couple expressed their love, exchanged their vows and when the man dressed in red told them, they can finally kiss, as a couple, a married couple for the first time, the crowd and the man in red himself had a hard time holding back their cheers! The flute once again started playing, as it had been silent now for some time, and the couple, accompanied by the crowd of people slowly took their way back along the muddy path to more a more secluded place in the woods..."

the "Bearded" man coming towards his destiny...

A wedding in the snow, wind and darkness!

Well... We are not always very busy down here. We were at first surprised when we got the invitation to Barbosa and Flor's wedding. The forecast said -10 degrees, 50 knots of wind and snowy. Alot and alot of snow. But as the old saying goes, "no bad weather, only bad clothes!" we dressed for the occasion and wouldn't want to have missed this amazing experience. I think, as they wanted a Viking wedding, they couldn't have asked for better forecast than this in a hundred years. The timing was perfect, not too cold, not too snowy and not too windy. But still with all the elements really needed to make it as "Viking" as possible?

We are still in this really rough weather, we've been since then stuck on the boat in the small water around Micalvi yacht club in Chile. Enduring 50 knots wind for the last couple of days. According to forecast, it should slow down during today. And we hope so, it has been a couple of rought nights here on anchor, not much sleep and even less to do than other times. But it has also been a great little check if our anchorage and shorelines would hold up. As it seems, the option of traveling further for us is slowly getting worse and worse, the seasons are starting to come upon us and the options are getting less and less.

We've been introduces to the traditional wood work of making bow and arrows. Maybe not identical to the Yaghan way - but similar!

And a lot of Barbecues has been on the agenda. Partly to get warm but also to get fed. Smart 2-in-1!

so, again, what is our plan?

Yeah... I wish I had some great news. But the situation is really just the same as the other like, fifty seven other entries in this blog. No news what so ever. And it is not really that we are not trying to get somewhere, quite the opposite. That, and working on the boat to the extent as this place allow, is what we are doing. But it is a slow work and not much is going on...

Chile refuses anyone to leave without written consent from arriving country that it is allowed for us to come. No other country can give that on the length of traveling we have. At least 2-3 months going west (north, then west) and at least 30 days going east. So we are once again stuck. Chile does not allow domestic traveling as well.

New location for Colon, avoid the charges of laying on a buoy and just be closer to nature... I guess... Mostly just not paying!

You guys talk about the Avengers and super heroes. This is a real super hero. I tell you! Thank god for this little "Iron man"!

We are in contact with embassies, I've contacted my father (Who can be a real pain in the ass if he lets him self be) to contact the foreign ministry in Sweden and see if they can push the arriving countries to actually help out. But it is a slow process and to be honest, i fail to see why we even have these instances. What is the embassies there for? What is the foreign affairs really doing for me as a private person? To be honest, they are there for information. That is it. They seem reluctant or even incapable of taking any action, reaching out any hands or doing anything. More than saying what we already know; "Contact the country you want to go to....". Thanks. Like we've not already done that the latest couple of 6 months. I'm guessing that if we are not a company working towards a country contributing to the GNP of Sweden, we are not really an interest for them. More than what we have to be due to we are Swedish. A joke if you ask me. The same when Johanna needed to go home, they were more or less incapable of even finding flight routes for her to go home, which she then took a lot of time by her self figuring out and only because she let the embassy know the route, they did a long "information letter" to all Swedish people in Chile about the new route "they" found... Like i said. A Joke...

But to be honest, never thought I would have to rely on the embassies or the foreign affairs anyways. Waste of tax paying money as it seem (not because I've paid taxes in Sweden for a long time - But guessing the Norwegians wouldn't be able to do much more anyways - even as I have been paying taxes there!) but I was nonetheless very surprised about their "lack of inability to do anything"....

There is a lot of cows roaming the island here...

So, we stay put and wait it out. Or at least we hope we will not have to stay another winter season around here. But the situations quite seem like we will... Not sure if the interior of the boat can handle another winter season of crazy condensation. Not sure if we really have the streangth and endurance to live through a 0 degrees boat while going full speed on the diesel heater. Isolation would have been a good idea if visiting cold places - Okay. Now I know... next time maybe!

But were there is life there is also death. There are a lot of bones around the island. Whales, cows, seals, birds...

The winds are hauling and the boat are rolling... But just one more day, as it seem, then it should be getting better out here. For at least a week. Will be nice getting of the boat a little and stretch those legs of mine.

Until next time, I hope we have something more interesting to say by then... But i doubt it!

Alpha Sierra...

//Ludvig