Outflowing Tide

We met one year ago on an island in the Aegean Sea.  Now we're out of college and out of momentum to live any longer on the island in the Puget Sound where Sophie grew up. We didn't know what to do next, where to go. But the island of Chiloé in the Los Lagos region of southern Chile has drawn us in, and we're about to flip-flop hemispheres.  The climate should be comparable to the Northwest, but its heading into summertime on that side of the world and we're looking forward to rewinding the seasons a bit to enjoy renewed sunshine.

Finished with summer employment; having purchased one-way get-me-outta-dodge flight reservations; in e-mail contact with a German-Chilean family eager to employ us for room and board on their organic farm; and through with life in the Northwest for awhile, we're currently in the throes of amassing months' worth of stuff that'll enable this next island hop.  We have a backpack apiece and several scary piles lumped into their own little islands of chaos on Sophie's floor.  Socks are co-mingling, wool hats have suspiciously vanished, and furniture is taking on new shapes. Important because it's got to be carried, Andrew has a superbly light tent to house our slumbering, which will be that much sweeter with Sophie's new sleeping bag—a Cat's Meow 20-degree bag of greater compactability and warmth than the seventies-era handmade down-filled behemoth she toted through college.  We anticipate camping at and around our work opportunities, especially through the higher altitudes and more southerly latitudes of Patagonia, so comfort is high on the priority list. 

Most of the other major expenses have been in batteries—around $35 total!—although we're hoping to purchase a new fuel bottle that won't be confiscated by the TSA, as well as a cutting board.  Otherwise, we've made piles of first aid and repair kit necessities, kitchen tools, and the few odds and ends of clothing that are neither too nice nor too shabby for farm work, city traveling, and not getting stolen.

Cameras have been difficult with their high replacement costs and fragile nature. We've decided to stretch out our artistic capacities and pack Sophie's old manual Nikon in addition to her little point-and-shoot digital camera.  With three rolls of black-and-white and three rolls of color, we're hoping to try a little harder and actually compose that perfect shot—after years of digital-era when we've done our best to unlearn that skill. (Note any and all photographs you've ever seen of Patagonia are so spectacular, I doubt it'll be too too hard.)  If that fails in practicality, the two-gig memory card obtained on a recent run to BestBuy holds four thousand shots. That, and we'll need it to publish any photos here.

Apart from packing, the only other project is getting this blog going, so stay tuned for further developments.