Kees Bouten in ‘Sailingsteps’ to Chiloé – San Carlos – Ancud.
When leaving Valparaiso captain Jacob Bouten had left half of his cargo in Valparaiso and took the other half with him again to get a better price in San Francisco. But first he went to S. Carlos on an island ‘Chilive’ in the south of Chile, in order to get more wood to ship to San Francisco.
The day after they arrived in San Carlos there enterd two more ships and thus they were anchored in the bay with four ships, one from Spain, one from France and an American one. Because they were anchored at long distance from the village, they rented an empty house where each of them took a room, furnitured with their own furniture from their ships. On a hill half an hour behind the village they visited the governor of the island and in order to please the inhabitants of the village and especially the priest, they started to go to church every morning. The priest liked this that much that he came to have a glas of wine with us every evening.
When I planned my trip I had not succeed in finding out about San Carlos on the island of Chilive in the south of Chile. It was only one month before I left, when booking my ticket, that Judith Post uncovered information. Judith is the woman from the World Ticket Center I contacted by email in order to arrange my ticket for the trip. She is Dutch, but appeared to be living in Chile and when she wrote to me, she said that when she read Chilive Island and pronounced it in Spanish that it sounded like the island of Chiloé, located between Valparaiso and Cape Horn. Shortly afterwards she found out that a settlement Villa y Fuerte Real de San Carlos was founded on the island in 1768, a place which is now called Ancud! Judith appeared to be living in Pucon in the lake district between Valparaiso and Ancud, an area I already intended to visit.
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