HOME About Sapphire Sailing Notes Constellations Contact Us OUR VOYAGE British Isles Atlantic Islands Atlantic Crossing Brazil Argentina Falkland Islands Southern Chile Northern Chile Peru Ecuador Pacific Crossing French Polynesia SW Pacific Australia GALLERY Boats People Places Scenery Wildlife Videos

Videos

Table of Contents Introduction Boats People Places Scenery Wildlife

Introduction

Our backup camera, a Canon Powershot S60, is capable of recording video footage. The quality is poor when compared to a dedicated video camera, but we hope you enjoy these clips nonetheless. All have dimensions of 320 x 240 pixels.

The videos on this page are encoded in Microsoft's Windows Media Video (WMV) format. (WMV is a closed, proprietary and non-standard version of MPEG-4 Part 2. I would prefer to use an open format such as Theora. However, our camera can only record footage in the Audio Video Interleave (AVI) format. I tried to convert the resultant files to Theora using ffmpeg2theora , but this caused a significant loss of quality.)

Boats

Video	Duration/s	Size/MB	Description
	71	4.8	After meeting Trevor and Annie in Bora Bora we went for a sail in their Wylo 35, Ironbark.
	90	3.8	We had a fairly challenging 3200M passage across the Pacific from the Galapagos to the Marquesas. After our intermediate shrouds failed, we had to make our way 1000M under jury rig in order to reach a safe anchorage.
	68	3.4	For most of our passage from Iquique to Salinas we enjoyed a gentle wind from aft of the beam so decided to use our cruising chute. This can be rigged either from the pole or directly from the stemhead as in this video.
	69	4.7	Sapphire sailed the 1100M passage from Valdivia to Iquique during September and we arrived in Iquique in November. We spent several days and in some cases weeks at various stops along the coast. Only a couple of hundred of miles north of Valdivia the climate changes dramatically (the influence of the Atacama Desert) and the further north we sailed the more benign the weather became.
	41	2.0	Kevin and Theresa earn the right to wear a ring in their port ear. The skipper totally fails to exhibit the maturity and decorum appropriate to the event. Tom and Vicky Jackson round Cape Horn on their beautiful wooden yacht Sunstone. In the background, you can just hear Kevin and Vicky discussing cinematography arrangements.
	56	2.8	After a 470M passage from Mar del Plata, we arrived in the sheltered waters of Golfo Nuevo and enjoyed a delightful beat up to the town of Madryn.

People

Video	Duration/s	Size/MB	Description
	13	0.6	Amongst his many other talents, the Canadian skipper of T Tauri Wind uses his mining hammer and chisel to produce a garnet for Theresa (particularly apt since it is her birthstone).
	131	9.6	A Polynesian dance troupe performed at the Bali Hai Club, Moorea. They were marvellous. The following night the crew from the Chilean naval vessel Esmeralda  performed their own music which was a great contrast.

Places

Video	Duration/s	Size/MB	Description
	191	9.3	We spent most of our time in the Galapagos Archipelago at the beautiful Isla Isabela. (This video is long so only download if you have a fast connection).
	63	3.0	At the factory of Homero Ortega P & Hijos in Cuenca, authentic Panama Hats are made and exported to countries around the world.
	70	3.4	Our grand tour of southern Peru with the main highlight being the lost city at Machu Picchu.
	68	3.4	The fish market at Valdivia, Chile, is frequented by several sea lions at any one time. They compete with each other, sometimes violently, for scraps of fish thrown to them by the fishermen.
	28	1.3	We visited an open day for the armed forces at Mount Pleasant, East Falkland. We were able to visit the bridge of the resident destroyer and frigate, the cockpit of a VC-10 and numerous other military goodies. The short clip shows a tornado taxiing along after buzzing the general area at high speed.

Scenery

Video	Duration/s	Size/MB	Description
	39	2.0	Out of the seventy days we spent in the Chilean channels, it failed to rain on four of them...
	27	1.4	One of our favourite anchorages at Caleta Bealieu, Seno Pia, Brazo Noroeste, Canal Beagle.
	64	3.2	During our sail through the Channels of southern Chile we did not take much video footage but hope this gives you a taste of what we were privileged to enjoy.

Wildlife

Video	Duration/s	Size/MB	Description
	131	5.7	We enjoyed snorkelling in French Polynesia. (Unfortunately we killed our small camera before reaching the Western Pacific where the snorkelling was infinitely better.)
	40	2.1	We came across a group of well over one hundred Pilot Whales, shortly after leaving the Galapagos.
	52	2.7	The Giant Tortoises at the Isabela Breeding Centre in the Galapagos
	41	2.0	The endemic Galapagos Penguin is related the the Magellanic Penguin found in southern Chile. It is thought they arrived in the Galapagos via the Humboldt Current which keeps the water cool enough for them to survive. There are now about 2-3000 penguins in the archipelago. The El Nino phenomenon of 1982/83 caused a loss of about 77 percent of the population. This little chap was fishing under our boat whilst we were anchored at Isla Isabela.
	120	5.8	As we left San Cristobal this female sealion was reluctant to leave us. She hitched a ride for about an hour before she decided to jump off for a swim. We had very little wind and she did not help our speed.
	112	5.5	These Bottlenose Dolphins played with us enroute from San Cristobal to Isla Isabela in the Galapagos. They made sure that we were watching them! It was incredible to see these fabulous animals making eye contact with us.
	32	1.6	These land iguanas live in Parque Bolivar in Guayaquil, Ecuador.
	93	4.5	Sealions at Iquique, Chile. Each night the male sealions gather here to bed down as these are the fellows who are not allowed near the females - these guys are not dominant males.
	12	0.7	A Peale's dolphin performs some acrobatics for our benefit off East Falkland.
	106	5.2	The afternoon spent walking on Volunteer Beach, East Falkland, is the highlight of our trip to date. Here, a group of King Penguins casts a dubious eye over Kevin before ambling past. Notice how the group waits for one, bolder penguin to set off before taking the plunge. The Gentoo Penguins at Volunteer Beach were highly inquisitive and would waddle up to within a few inches of us for a closer look.
	36	1.9	We first saw these graceful Commerson's Dolphins off the Argentine coast. They were especially prevalent around the Falkland Islands.
	18	0.9	We visited a colony of many hundred Magellanic Penguins at Caleta Sara, Argentina. These birds are easily identified by their distinctive calls, which resemble the braying of a donkey.
	50	2.5	This clip was taken at Golfo Nuevo, Argentina. A female sealion had been lying peacefully in our tender for a couple of hours, before her mate came along. After shooing her away, he climbed in himself. He had some trouble though...