Today we said goodbye to the tiny town of winter harbour and headed back into the wild. It was a perfect day on the water, no swell a light wind and the sun was shining. We had about 30km to cover today, we wanted to get in the best position to start Brooks Peninsula the following day.
We passed plenty of otters to Ngaios delight (every time we pass one she stops paddling, waves at them and calls out ‘hi little friend’) and we had a cool encounter with some porpoises. There were so many of them in the harbour, we had seen a few come up for air, they are so quick though you can hardly catch a glimpse. Then behind Ngaio a whole group (pod?) was cruising along all coming up for air and making that awesome blow hole sound. We made our way around the point, it is always a bit rougher going around a point. The swell rolls in and comes from all directions, often breaking on rocks before reaching the shore. We paddled past Lawn Point and navigated some narrow spots with a lot of surge and the odd rocky surprise. Tomorrow the wind is supposed to pick up to around 15 kts with a bit of a swell. We picked a camp spot that would be easy to launch from and we would be paddling with the wind behind us on our way to Brooks Peninsula. There are some wolf prints on the sandy part of our camp, and a little squirrel is sitting in the tree by our tent eating berries, Ngaios making the beds and I’m getting started on the fire.
We have an early start tomorrow to try to beat the wind!
GPS Tracker Tips- If you are following Brando & Ngaio on their TRACKME GPS tracker, here's a tip; Once you follow the link, click on the 'Brando & Ngaio' location icon and select 'path'
(If the Brando and Ngaio Icon does not show up on the map click the menu then participant list then 'show all')
(first image and blog via satellite phone)