June 19 – Started off today with a tent pole breaking from me trying to shake the wet sand out of the tent in a southerly this morning. Tent poles are awesome nowadays and never having broken a tent pole on any of my previous trips, I didn't have the nice little pole repair tube with me, so duct tape and sticks to the rescue, but had to cut the sleeve on my old tent to fit the repair. Forecast NW – it is blowing SE – exact headwind. Took off in a soaking rain storm this morning – was glad to be in the boat and not packing up when it hit. I think I have turned the corner for the better blister-wise, but it's hard to tell. Finally half a day of almost runs – certainly a tailwind even if it was just from the rear quarter - very welcome. I made good time to Blunden island opposite Vargas island – gorgeous campsite again – I love being out here.
June 18 – Sitting in the tent in the morning listening to the fairly heavy rain. Food stowed in the boat, where it should be overnight, but of course its not in the tent where I can eat it; clothes on the log outside to 'dry'. Where’s the north westerly tailwind - No NW – fresh southerly all day 5 to 6 km/h across Nootka sound - rain showers, cold, against the tide too even though it was going out!! It was the same direction (against me) coming in! Stopped at Escalante - thinking of you all. Love you mom and Kelsey and kudos to Sean, Joe and Colin – left for Estevan point anyway – tide and wind diminished somewhat and I made bird island 5km N of Estevan pt lighthouse – NW finally forecast for tomorrow – 7th day and I haven’t caught a run yet unless you count some clapotis rounding Maquinna Pt. Sounds of the waves, loons, bald eagles, ravens – land of the wolf, bear and cougar.
June 17 – Left Catala island camp at 8:30am – 8km/h with the tide almost to Nootka island for 10km then the southerly came up and tide turned early and in the familiar situation – of paddling hard into wind, chop and current doing only 6km/h or less. Stopped after 25km at Calvin creek to wait it out and hopefully fresh southerly will die towards pm. Cold rain. Have had to put the tent up . Gloves the last 2 days have helped blisters which was good, but strong headtide to Maquinna point at Nootka, made progress hard. Again hard paddling at 6km/h – southerly headwind freshening – called it a day and decided to land for a few hours and slept in the hopes of the wind dying a little, but southerly still blowing. Decided not to cross Nootka sound – just got the tent up before the rain shower – lying here eating my cheese like a lollipop. This june in particular is cold – have to put dry clothes on and tent up just to rest in the day – wind was a light headwind when I left
June 16 – Very tired from rounding Brooks yesterday – slept in and left Spring island around 10 ish – light southerly headwind all day and against the tide for most of it. Raining – good timing I’m in my tent just after dinner. Sardines and cheese tastes good. My VHF turned on in the bag and is very low on battery – safety first – this am David Pinel lent me a new one with fully charged battery – SPOT was wet inside yesterday – am and is a little corroded inside – I dried it out and put new alkaline batteries – no lithium – too cheap – so if the the SPOT fails I have a radio and am fine – late start very tired and blisters a little infected – light headwinds – had to work to do 6 to 7km/h – not going to get the record like this. With the tide and wind against me, I only did 30 km today and exhausted and sore at Catala island – Glad to end at 4pm – fingers swollen, red around the blisters sore to do anything – at least I got a forecast – light southerly headwind tomorrow again! Another headwind. Gorgeous coastline and campsite – I think a grey or a Humpback whale surfaced right behind me today. Enormous back and a tiny dorsal fin. Lots of cute sea otters.
June 15 - nothing on the radio last night on the south-east side of quatsino sound so not sure what today brings for Brooks. Paddled 5km to grassy point, quiet so went for the diagonal to Brooks – remained quiet so got to Brooks – first tide in my favor since Cape Scott going around brooks then a very slight tailwind for the first time on the whole trip. Beautiful warm stop at Nordstrom Creek half way round Brooks – bear and wolf footprints – quiet to Spring Island, but a tough, long paddle as the tailwind that helped a lot but did not produce a run faded halfway. Stayed on Spring Island with Dave Pinel and crew – declined a beer so as not to lose my unassisted status – tough trip – kudos to all who went before. Llight headwinds forecast for next two days – is it too much to ask to get a couple of downwind legs on this trip. I haven’t caught a single run yet – sheesh! Camped on Spring Island with Dave Pinel and the crew from West Coast Expeditions
June 14 – Really hard day 45km only. Left at 4:45am to catch the outgoing tide, since I had battled against the incoming tide the day before, but it was also against me!! For 20km I ground on against it and into a slight headwind, then, because this was unsustainable, I stopped, slept, ate and rested for 3 hrs to catch the opposite tide, the incoming tide, but it too was against me all the way and the wind had freshened to a strong southerly headwind – 2ft whitecaps it was all I could do to cross Quatsino Sound fighting the tide and wind doing 5km/h for an hour and a half of hard paddling. I arrived and took a much needed rest in the lee of a small island on the N end of Restless Bight – knackered, chilled, sore. Saw a spot of sun at the end of the day. No tide in my favor this side of Cape Scott and no tailwind on the whole trip so far. Today was nasty
June 13 – 5:30am depart light headwind all the way to Cape Scott and on the other side after that – against a strong flood tide around Cape Scott and paddling through kelp beds to try and avoid it. Almost like paddling up a class II river, sneaking up eddies and ferry gliding to cross the current. Doing 6 to 7km/h – threw up twice – extremely sore stomach muscles from heavy boat – overcast with fine drizzle – chilled, sore inner elbow from leaning back to save stomach and paddling with my arms – no NW as promised 2 days ago – tired stopped early at 2pm-ish for some r&r as this is not sustainable. Going to eat sleep lighten the boat – tomorrow is another day. Camped on the northernmost island of 2 little islands on the N end of San Josef Bay
June 12th 2013. START. Left Shoreline Drive, east of Port Hardy right on time at 4pm. By the time I had paddled the half hour up and around Dillon Point, the easterly, forecast the day before, never happened and instead I turned left into quite a fresh NE in my face for 2/3 of the day – bit of a wet ride as it was kicking up against the ebbing tide. This is where my Spot got water inside, as little whitecaps were breaking over the bows for most of the ride. The last hour and a half was quiet – gorgeous sunset – did about 42 km in 6 hours – quite an honest start – definitely not wafting down at 10 km/h!. Camped on a lovely gravel point just west of Shushartie
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