From Chile to California on a Sailboat.

Lois family origins.

Manuel Domingo Lois Baeza was born in Santiago in 1764. He is our first record of a Lois in Chile.

We believe his father, José Antonio Lois Nateiro came to Chile from Galicia, Spain. We would appreciate information about him or his wife Manuela Baeza y Murillo de la Hermosa .

Juan Lois Perales, captain of El Calypso, was born in 1918 in Taltal, a mining town and, at that time, a very cosmopolitan port. very cosmopolitan port of northern Chile, due to the great saltpeter boom. His father, a doctor, was a Mason and a militant in the anticlerical movement. Juan, the fourth of six children, was still young when the family moved to Santiago. He became a doctor and his brothers, Darwin, an engineer, Voltaire, a lawyer and, later, as a politician, Regidor for Santiago. Juan’s sister, Raquel, was a social worker in the Chilean army and reached the rank of general.

Port of Tal Tal, Chile, 1899, Photo by Carlos Brandt, Biblioteca Nacional, Chile.

Our Captain´s life in Chile

In 1948, Dr. Juan Lois Perales Dr. Juan Lois Perales married Eliana Figueroa De la Jara. She was born in 1927 in Freire, in the south of Chile, where her father Adolfo Figueroa had a farm and a sawmill. The oldest record we have of Eliana Figueroa De la Jara’s family is that of José Evaristo Figueroa Pantoja (1840-1936).

Eliana was the third child of the Figueroa De la Jara family. All members of her family were devout Catholics. The Figueroa-De la Jara moved in the 1940’s from the South of Chile to a large home on Suecia Avenue in Providencia, Santiago. Later, when Eliana married Dr. Juan Lois, this house became the home of the Lois Figueroa family.

The Lois-Figueroa couple had six children. Three of them studied medicine in Chile. The oldest son became a radiologist and the two oldest girls became pediatricians. The other siblings attained Ph.D’s in Biochemistry from UCLA. Jacqueline, the youngest daughter, studied anthropology at the University of Chicago.

Dr. Juan Lois Perales, a thoracic surgeon, worked in state hospitals in Santiago and did not have a private practice. He had always liked sailing, loved the sea, was an avid scuba diver and spear fisherman. Around 1970, he bought a 35-foot (10.7 m) sailboat which he named Calypso. The Calypso was built in Chile by the Chilean Navy. He gained experience sailing the rough waters off the Chilean coast with his family.

Dr. Juan Lois P.,Eliana Figueroa, children. Algarrobo, Chile, ca 1965.

The Lois family had a long history of travels and ties to the U.S.A. Young Eliana visited the U.S. A. with her father (Adolfo) and sister (Olga) in the 1940’s. Augusto came to California as an exchange student to attend high-school in the early 1960s; Rodrigo visited his brother Augusto while he was attending high-school in California.

Maria Eliana, the eldest daughter, came to California in 1973. She had seen a notice posted at the U. of Chile’s Medical School. The Loma Linda University Hospital in Southern California sought medical residency applicants from Latin America. She applied and was accepted.

Travel Dreams.

When Maria Eliana was finishing her medical residency at Loma Linda University Hospital, her father dreamed of sailing with his three children from Chile to California. They planned to visit Maria Eliana and after resting from the long voyage, they would continue sailing to Hawaii, Easter Island and then, return to Chile following the prevailing winds. Thus, our captain and his sons began to plan the voyage of their dreams with a departure date set for September or October 1973.

Politics intrudes.

In 1972, Chilean political and social life had become extremely polarized. Socialist President Salvador Allende was elected with only 36% of the vote. Economic mismanagement and sectarian pressures on his policies made life very difficult for non-political professionals. The growing unrest culminated in a bloody military coup (led by General Augusto Pinochet and supported by the U.S.) that overthrew the government on September 11, 1973. As a result, the boat trip planned for September 1973 had to be postponed.

After the coup, political instability and repression were rampant. The privatization of many state functions such as education and healthcare continued to make life difficult and prospects uncertain for many professionals. Against this backdrop, it seems possible that when Dr. Lois and his three sons finally secured the required sailing permits in April 1974, their trip’s purpose changed from tourism to emigration.

Iris (the second daughter of the Lois Figueroa family, who became a pediatrician) and Jacqueline, the youngest, remained in Chile with her mother. Iris married Felipe Molinos U., a civil engineer. In 1981 they joined the rest of the Lois family in California.

Trip.

Two days after setting sail from Algarrobo, Chile, on the 9th of May, 1974 (date verified with the old passport), near the infamous seas known as “las alturas de Coquimbo” they encountered a strong storm (“surazo”) that lasted three days. When the storm cleared, it had pushed them north to Caldera. Off the Caldera coast the yacht motor broke down.

They managed to sail to Antofagasta where they spent one week (under the radar) waiting for spare parts to repair the motor. Their sailing permit stamped by port authorities was for Arica. After repairs were made they continued straight on to Callao, Perú (bypassing Arica) where they contacted a friend of one of Juan LP’s brothers. They spent two days in Callao and visited this friend and through him learned that family and friends in Chile believed the four voyagers to be lost at sea since they had not stopped in Arica. They sent news of their well-being to the family in Chile.

They had a radio that did not work and, like the old sailors, they used a sextant to calculate their position. Each had a three-hour watch during the day and night. They had an inflatable boat for emergencies.

They tried fishing but never managed to catch anything, except a hammerhead shark near the Galapagos Islands.