Ngaio had set the alarm for 5am, she claims I kept telling her I wanted to sleep longer, she managed to get me up at 7am. We were heading out early this morning in the hope of missing the wind that was supposed to reach 15 kts by 11am.
We had about a 20km paddle to a beach directly opposite us on Brooks Peninsula. We were on the water by 8am, the conditions were good with a flat sea and light wind behind us. This picked up and by 0930 we had a choppy swell and strong wind.
When the conditions are like this it’s frustrating because you can’t keep your boat straight, you seem to spend most of your time going side ways than forwards. The swell sort of picks up the tail end of your boat and puts it to the left or the right so you are constantly correcting.
We made it across by 11, we paddled around the point and into the blissful calm of the bay. The bay was made up of three main beaches all facing different directions, broken up by rocky outcrops. The beaches were long, sandy and flat and there were seabirds every where.
We found a camp spot that was sheltered from the wind and got to work. We set up the camp, Ngaio had to empty and dry her boat and I got the solar panels out as it was beautiful and sunny.
We spent the main part of the day catching up on maintenance and odd jobs we had fallen behind on, small repairs on the boats and airing out the tent and sleeping bags. Ngaio had some serious plans to bask like a seal on a rock and I had some popcorn hidden away that was calling my name. It was nice to have some time at a camp to just chill and enjoy, we’ve stayed in so many beautiful spots but it feels like we hardly get to enjoy them sometimes.
Tomorrow we have a big day paddling around the top of the peninsula, if the wind and swell are what the weather says, it should be a flat still day. We are both pretty excited to tick off this next milestone of our trip!
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(first image and blog via satellite phone)