Here's a few notes about my use of the Aquapure Traveller in the far south.
In February this year I was invited to join a small private sailing expedition aboard a 54' steel ketch called 'Northanger' to sail from Ushuaia in Argentina, 500 miles across the notoriously wild Drake Passage, to the Antarctic Peninsular, and back.
Having been to the Patagonia region a couple of times recently on other sailing trips I was delighted to come across the possibility of being self-sufficient in treated and filtered drinking water. The problem with south America is that supplies vary and the problem on yachts is that the main water tanks are usually impossibly inaccessible for cleaning... and the water supply tends to have been a mixture from several different countries... and sources.
I was therefore able to top up my Aquapure Traveller from any source aboard the boat whatever its origins. It was also helpful to be able to be sure of clean water to drink both on the way to join the boat and on my return journey. As a result I didn't get any of the usual tummy bugs that one really expects to have to deal with from time to time on such trips.
We had a fairly straightforward passage south from Ushuaia because we were able to leave with a good weather forecast for the following few days that gave us just enough time to get to the Peninsular before the next gales arrived. While we were there we mostly had quite good weather with only a couple of gales in the two weeks and we were well tied in to secure and sheltered anchorages.
Finding water with which to fill the tanks was difficult and we eventually ended up ferrying melt water from a small lake near one of our last anchorages in Antarctica. However the quality was pretty uncertain because of the amount of wildlife also using the lake for washing, drinking and everything else that penguins, seals, gulls and skuas do!
So I was very happy to have my own water supply suitably purified on the return passage. This turned out to be rather more rugged because time was passing and we all had deadlines to return to.
Much of the time we were experiencing gale force winds and the mountaineers aboard were more or less laid out with seasickness. However all things eventually come to an end and six days out we passed Cape Horn and headed thankfully in to the shelter of the Chilean channels once more.
I have never written anything like this before but I can genuinely say that I shall never go on any interesting travelling or sailing trips without my own trusty Aquapure Traveller bottle again.
Roger Robinson
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