Chapter 3: Arrival in Chile, three weeks later

Hank was within sight of Valparaiso, Chile. At least he thought he was. The GPS and his plot said he was there. He had arrived about two in the morning and had hove too so that he could enter in the morning. He had his masthead strobe light flashing as usual so he could be seen.

Strange thing was, he wasn't seeing any lights from shore or any shipping at all. He didn't expect much ship traffic at night, but things seemed unnaturally quiet for a largish port city. A great sense of dread settled in his stomach. He worried until six thirty when he decided he could make his way in.

He dropped sail because the wind had stopped this close to land due to the diurnal effect close ashore. Close ashore wind was often caused by the heating and cooling of the land.

He cranked up the diesel and slowly headed in. He tried the VHF again repeatedly and tried to raise someone on several channels but nobody was answering. Everything appeared neat as he approached his chosen anchorage. He dropped the hook and turned off the engine.

As he paddled to shore it seemed very surreal. Not a soul was moving anywhere. He saw no animals at all, and very few birds. He tied his kayak up and stepped on shore for the first time in two months.

Something was bothering him. It had been nagging at his mind for some time before he realized what it was. There was a definite funk in the air. It was much stronger ashore. He knew that smell, it was the smell of dead and rotting meat. No people or animals. Bad smell. It didn't look good for the people of Valparaiso.

He decided He didn't want or need to see any dead people. He had always been afraid of death and funerals. Besides, he didn't want to get whatever had got them.

He had never heard of a disease that killed everyone. It had to be a disease. There was no physical destruction at all. No A-Bomb effects. No carpet bombs, nothing.

When you think about it, who would go to war against Chile? Peru maybe? Why? It seemed as if everyone had gone home and just died because the downtown area had no bodies or signs of life. The only reason he smelled death this far from their homes had to be because many or all had died.

He returned to his boat as fast as he could. He would go south to Talcahuano. He could be there in two days. He could spend the night, pick up some supplies and then head north. The people there could tell him what had happened.

He paddled back out. Just for the sake of trying, he blew his boats horn three long blasts and then waited a minute and did it again. He tried several times to no avail. He didn't see anybody come out. Evidently whatever happened here had killed everyone. He went to start the engine and all he got was a clicking noise from the starter solenoid.

He removed the starter to see if it would turn if pulled from the engine and it did. The bolts holding it on had not seemed right so he put the starter back on and put on plenty of Lock Tite on the bolts and tightened the nuts well. She started right up after that. He motored out and then set sail for Talcahuano.

Chile was a long skinny country that had little arable land. From the Pacific you could see the spine of the Andes just a few miles inland. Everything in most of Chile existed on a thin thread of land between the ocean and the mountains a few miles inland.

There was one thing about Chile. Wherever you were, the view was spectacular. This was why he had headed for Chile rather than the more traditional port in Balboa Panama. That and the outstanding seafood.

Talcahuano had a modern port city and was only a day or day and half south. He had decided to go south. If he went north, the next port of any size was Callao, Peru. It was a long sail and if things were as bad there, they were probably bad all over this continent.

He probably would not be able to get through the Panama Canal if everyone was dead. This meant going south was the best plan if his ultimate destination was on the east coast of the U.S. Under good conditions it would take a week to ten days to get to Callao, Peru.

The prevailing winds were coming from the northwest and the water current was too, so the trip to Talcahuano was done at a righteous 12 knots over ground, one third of which was from the current.

The bad news was that Talcahuano was a ghost town too. Once again it looked like people had slunk off to die in their homes. He could never know what they had endured those last few days. What thoughts they had. He felt more alone thinking about this than when he was at sea surrounded by thousands of miles of water.

It felt surreal. It was like He was an interloper. This was the ultimate horror scifi movie in living color. Would he ever see anyone alive again?

It had been over two long months of sailing with only one brief conversation with a Japanese fishing vessel. Were we it? A few fishermen and himself? Or was this disease only here in South America?

There had to be someone alive somewhere. He was worrying more about being alone the rest of his life than he was about the fate of mankind. Would he go nuts? He was feeling quite weird as it was. Valparaiso put him in shock. This put him in dread for his life. What future was there alone forever? Would he catch it?

Practical matters entered his thinking. This was different than his last port call in Valparaiso. He was getting low enough on many things that he needed to get some supplies. If he had to go south all the way around the tip of South America, he needed water and fuel.

The ports south of here was much smaller and had few things he would want. It wouldn't hurt to lay in some non perishable food. If he stayed away from people/bodies he should be OK. Whatever it was it was virulent.

He had no idea how virulent at the time. How long after contracting it until you were sick? Was he sick already? his heart was beating a mile a minute at the thought. He knew this was bad. Very very bad. If he wasn't careful he would just lay down and give up. Was there a point to going on?

He found the Cendyr Nautico yacht club. Talcahuano was the port city for Conception a neighboring city that sits on the Bio Bio river. He had been here once during his navy years and we had stopped at the Chilean naval base, but the piers there were too big for his little boat.

The Cendyr Nautico yacht club just had a small dock so that was an ideal place to tie up. Most ships and boats in Talcahuano were anchored or tied to a mooring buoy. Many were pulled up on the beach for work. The bay was large and open to the west. It really wasn't a great layout for a port.

Visiting here during his navy days had proved it wasn't a great liberty port but we were here to hang out with the Chilean Navy and do some exercises. They had loved having us here and our presence kept them on their toes. If we didn't come down here every year, their navies would whither and die.

He needed to stay away from disease vectors. Was this passed from water or air? Was it effectively dead now that it had done it's job? Was this purposely done? A freak of nature? He had no idea.

He wrapped a T-shirt around his mouth and nose in the hopes that it would prevent him from inhaling the disease. It would have to do for now since he had no professional breathing mask or anything.

He did have a scuba air tank he used to scrub the bottom. He could not work on land walking around with a big heavy tank on his back. A set of heavy duty rubber gloves completed his safety gear and he headed off to see what he could find.

Like most port cities, whatever you wanted seemed to be miles from where you were tied up. He walked and he walked. Eventually he found a bicycle and he hopped on that and started pedaling. He figured nobody would get mad as it seemed the owner had passed on.

He needed better transportation and a better mask. He found a pharmacia sign and after spending a few minutes looking, found a sizable enough brick to break in with. The lights were off and it was a struggle finding what he wanted.

Everything was understandably labeled in Spanish with an occasional English translation. For now he was more interested in a better mask and gloves. After he found some and stuffed a box of gloves and surgical masks under his shirt, he was off looking for a vehicle. He eventually found a small sedan with keys in it and off he went looking for a grocery store.

He found one a few blocks away. It was much smaller than a US grocery store. It smelled bad inside because the power was off and the meat and vegetables were all rotting.

He grabbed a couple large boxes and started filling them with can goods. Canned vegetables and soups, coffee and oatmeal were his main thing. They didn't have the flavored oatmeals. He added lots of dried fruit packages to make up for that. He did find some canned meats and canned fish which he also stocked up on as well as bottled water. He took several cases of one liter water bottles. They would come in handy when sailing. It wouldn't do for washing but he was not going to go thirsty.

He put it all back in the car and started driving back. Every few blocks he blew the horn hoping against hope that someone would come out. He didn't see anyone. When he got to the boat he stored it all forward on the V berth.