Dear all,

Last Friday we successfully arrived to Caleta Tortel after abt 450 km driving on gravel roads on very mountainous terrain. We boarded our boat Jorge Montt and left for Wager Island. Due to the bad weather conditions in the Messier Channel we had to stay overnight in a protected bay. We arrived to Wager Island on Saturday noon. 

We quickly set up the antennas at the tideline and the pileups started. At around 1800 the rain started too and was followed by gale force winds. The tents were deformed by the wind and even the ¨all weather proof¨tents could not resist the sheer pressure of water and soon we were all soaked. Food, clothes, everything. In the meantime our boat sought protection from the elements in a protected bay in Byron Island. By 2000 local we lost contact with them too. We spent the rest of the night trying to operate, communicate with the CE Navy and protect ourselves from the rain and wind. At 9 AM we had to reduce operation to minimum to spare gasoline for emergency communication. At 1 PM we were told by the CE Navy base to leave the island immediately and seek refuge. I had a last frenetic hour on 17m running EU at 5q/min rates under a piece of plastic hand keying on my knee and paperlogging until the captain gave the final order to leave. At that moment we had 2400 QSOs from XR7W in the log.
Crossing the channel again at the Peñas Golf was horrifying. We got back to Tortel by 5AM Sunday morning. After obtaining the necessary documentation to Roger we left Tortel at 11AM. Everything was ¨fine¨ until 1930 when near to a small place called Bahia Murta our rented/borrowed van slipped of the gravel road and hit a rock frontally and turned upside-down. The car was frontally damaged and we were first taken to a nearby village called Rio Tranquillo which had a first aid outpost where our injuries were inspected and we were immediately sent to Coyhaique abt 200 km away in an ambulance car, the nearest place with a hospital.

There we were inspected more thoroughly and xrayed. Vlad RV1CC was diagnosed with a broken left upper arm, Marco CE6TBN with cuts and bruises and a broken rib, Yuri RA0FU with cuts and me with a broken finger (not cw!), a broken rib and am suffering from compression on the torax bone. The question this morning was if Vlad had to be operated here or can be flown home to SPB. I feel very lucky to survive that accident and I hope we all get the fit-to-fly (sic!) clearance asap.

Of course our first priority at the moment is to get out from Coyhaique. The damage in car, equipment and additional costs are estimated in excess of 11k euro. Some photos were taken, as soon as I will a bit more fit, I will publish them somewhere. If you can and want to contribute to lessen this damages please feel free to contact me via this email. Please feel free to circulate this info bulletin.

This expedition took us to the most difficult places in non-Antarctic Chile and it frustrates me that we missed the very last step.

73!

zoli ce7/ha1ag from Coyhaique, Chile

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