Travel with Indigo

This is the major port city of Chile and located immediately adjacent to Vina del Mar, so our travel here was brief. With the help of Navy Captain Sergio Bascunan, the Chief of Operations for the 1st Naval District and a new compadre, we secure a birth alongside the commercial wharf in downtown Valpariso. The city, though it retains much of the appearance typical of old port cities, has many buildings of classical architecture, including the national headquarters of the Armada de Chile, where Sergio works. It rises steeply from the Pacific shores much as San Francisco does and in its historic district is crowded with colonial era buildings, now brightly painted, lining its steep twisting roads. The hills are nearly too steep to walk, so at strategic locations are funiculars (ascensors in Spanish) for which the city is justly famous. They are small, wood frame, brightly painted cabins on rails that move pedestrians up and down the hillsides for a modest price.

Thanks to Sergio I receive a private guided tour of the Chilean Navy guided missile frigate “Captain Prat”, named for a war hero of the late 1800s. Sergio and the officer of the day take me through the immaculate ship, bought from the Dutch Navy a few years back. The tour ends in the officer’s bar–yes, bar. They are allowed on the ships of nearly all the world’s navies save that of the US–where we enjoy a few rounds of the ever present pisco sour.

Near Indigo’s birth is the Argentine Navy’s tall ship “Libertad” here for a ceremonial visit celebrating detente between the two countries after nearly coming to blows in the 1980s. One night I attend, along with Indigo’s deck hand Tomas and stewardess Darcy, a formal reception on the Libertad in which senior officers of the Argentine Navy host those of the Chilean Navy along with other local dignitaries. It is a predictably stuffy affair featuring a windy speech from the Argentine Ambassador to Chile and a tango danced by the commanding officer of the Libertad and his wife. Indigo’s captain, John Watson, and his wife, Fiona, are not invited because they are Brits. Argentine pride is apparently still wounded over loss of the Falklands War more than twenty years ago. Talk about childish petulance.

After the formal reception, I host a livelier party on Indigo for Sergio and other senior Chilean Navy officers and their wives, no Argentines allowed except for one personable young officer, Emiliano Mambretti, who befriended us on Libertad. The party, like nearly all I’ve attended in Chile, gets a little wild by conventional standards but it’s great fun as Indigo extends her network of friends.

Nearly a week before this party I mentioned to Sergio that a boatswain’s whistle and handmade lanyard that had been presented to me by our friends on the Argentine Navy ship Castillo was stolen by workmen on Indigo and how deeply I regret this loss. At a small private dinner party hosted at their home by Sergio and his wife Paulina, Sergio presents me with a new whistle attached to the most elaborate hand woven lanyard you could possibly imagine. It is a consummate work of a special sailor’s art. Sergio said it took a week of constant work by the artisan to complete it, and I will treasure it always. Also at the party are his 16 year old daughter Trinidad, their 14 year old son Sergio Junior, along with a 5 and a 2 year old. I am ever grateful that they have welcomed me into their family in such a warm and gracious way.

One day while having lunch in the Navy Officer’s Club with Sergio and his wife, Paulina, I admire the cuff links he is wearing. They are onyx trimmed in gold with silhouettes of the Chilean Navy tallship “Esmeralda” etched in gold on their faces. A few days later Sergio presents to me these very same cuff links saying he wore them during his service on the Esmeralda. Well, you can imagine how very touched I was by this gesture of friendship. It is the kind of man he is, and I’m lucky to be able to call him a good friend. He has made the visit of Indigo and her owner and crew a far better experience than it ever would have been without him.

A day after the post-Libertad party, I host another party and harbor cruise on a fine sunny spring day with Sergio and his wife and two oldest children, Sergio Junior and Trinidad, along with other family members and Navy Reserve officers Fernando Hartwig, Miguel Navarro, and Roberto Verdugo. Reserve officers in Chile are highly successful and influential men from the civilian world who are part time Navy officers and who take great pride in their positions. Miguel is a Harvard-educated pediatric cardiac surgeon, who also trained under the finest surgeons in the US. He quit surgery at age 50, saying all surgeons should do likewise because the mind fails to keep up with the job’s demands. He also is from one of the very prominent oligarch families. Fernando is scion to one of Chile’s most wealthy and prominent families and owns, among much else, a major interest in a rancho of some 600,000 hectares (two and a half acres are in one of these) on which he and six partners raise the exotic Wagyu cattle bred from embryos somehow spirited away from Japan where they originated. These are the cattle that when properly raised produce Kobe beef. Roberto began his business life as a simple fisherman and now, solely through his hard work and intelligence, is Chile’s largest exporter of farm raised salmon and wild caught swordfish. Great guys all.

On another night, I am invited to the home in Santiago of Juan Francisco for yet another barbecue. Juanfra and I, along with his charming wife Alejandra and friends, met while Indigo was anchored at the yacht club in Vina del Mar and had an impromptu party on the occassion that lasted until well into the next morning. Now his wife is in India for a time leaving him to watch over their six children, a task for which he has wisely retained a nanny thus allowing him to host the crew of the Pisco Sour and Marsetta and other friends for a boys night out party.

Pillo, Rodrigo, Gato, Marsetta, Sergio, Tomas, and Emiliano from the Libertad, and other friends of Indigo and Juanfra meet at the estate home of Juanfra in the heart of Santiago. Built on one and a half acres and surrounded by high walls and electrified fence, it is a compound within which is an enormous home of modern and tasteful design featuring an extensive collection of modern art and sculpture. The beautifully landscaped garden is heavily treed with exotic species and, in its midst, is the swimming pool and outdoor kitchen or cocina where the festivities are held. Beef steaks, pork ribs, beef ribs, chorizo and chicken are grilled to perfection. Pisco sours, naturally, flow in copious quantity along with fine red wines from his father-in-law’s estates. Also featured is a bowl of the largest freshest blueberries I’ve ever tasted. Juanfra, it turns out, is Chile’s largest exporter of these, mostly into the US. His family also has been for the past thirty years the sole importer into Chile of trucks and buses made in Brazil. These two business along with others have made him very wealthy and he’s only in his mid-40s. Great guy and good friend.

A few days before we are scheduled to depart for the Juan Fernandez Islands, I travel an hour outside of Valpariso to the rancho of Miguel Navarro for a barbecue with Miguel, Fernando, Tomas, Darcie and Philipe Lehuede, the president and part owner of Banco Bice. The rancho (actually called a fundo in Chile) is set in a grove of eucalyptus trees on a hillside looking over pasture land a small part of which he has devoted to growing pinot noir grapes as a modest hobby.

Upon arrival and wisely before too much drink is consumed we set off on horseback for a brief tour of a small part of the property. I ride one of the Chilean ponies using an authentic saddle of the wassos (cowboys). My pony is small by conventional horse standards but sturdy and frisky and quite typical of Chilean horses. After our brief ride, we return to the ranch house for some of the finest grilled steaks I’ve ever tasted. These are from the Wagyu (pronounced something like why-you) cattle of Fernando’s rancho. Faithful to tradition, the pisco sours flow then the red wines and finally, I vaguely recall, some brown water, maybe scotch, I’m not sure (nor am I sure of much else thereafter). Miguel’s housekeeper also prepared wonderful veggies, salads and deserts to accompany the steaks. Following what turned out to be an all day and much of the night event, I collapse in bed on board Indigo. I’m thankful that Tomas served as my driver, as he does on most such occassions, and remained dutifully sober.