It was a wild night on the west coast. The wind did it’s very best to pull apart our camp site and the rain was thundering down in the early hours of the morning. The tarp worked wonders and kept us and our tent dry, it was pretty cool listening to the storm rage while we were dry and warm inside.
The sun was out when we got up so we hiked into the Forrest to a nearby lake. It was like a little oasis at the lake, no wind and just me and Ngaio. We had our first proper fresh water swim and it felt so good! You know you are going to sleep well after washing a weeks worth of sea salt off you.
We stopped and chatted to the squirrels, found some cute frogs near the trail and filled our water from a fast running stream. It was funny to think that one week ago we would stand at the edge of the Forrest and peep in, then quickly walk back to the beach, checking behind us as we went, for any bears or cougars that may have jumped out at us.
We were back at camp by the mid afternoon, the swell was huge and the wind was as strong as ever. We decided to move camp to somewhere we would have more natural shelter. It’s hard to imagine the weather ever not being stormy now. We didn’t know how lucky we were on our first 5 days of paddling! Each evening I’ve been listening to the weather on the marine radio, the wind is supposed to drop on Tuesday from 40knots from the South east to 15knots from the north and then to ‘light’ on Thursday. It’s currently pouring with rain and I’m running around filling all the bottles with fresh drinking water.
Ngaios evening limerick We are stuck in San Josef Bay We’ve enjoyed our second day We’ve got a great camp So we won’t get too damp The wind just won’t go away
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(first image and blog via satellite phone)