I got up early this morning to get the fire going, fish for breakfast! There was a pretty sunrise and the weather was looking fine. There were however, some large waves breaking in our bay. The waves were similar to the waves at Hahei, a dumpy shore break.
We got our camp packed up and made a plan for a surf launch. We decided to do what’s called a ‘seal launch’, where we use the steep beach to our advantage to slide us into the water. I waited for Ngaio to go first just incase things went wrong. Her boat hit the water and instantly rolled, Ngaio managed to roll the boat back up at the same time I got in the water gave her boat a big push and told her to paddle hard. She made it out past the next breaking wave and into the calm water, phew. I had the same problem as soon as my boat hit the water, I went sideways but was able to correct myself, punched through the swell and paddled out to Ngaio.
After the exciting morning we had a chill day on the water, it was so calm and beautiful. We paddled in comfortable silence for much of the day, sometimes Ngaio would pipe up with how much she wanted a curry, or how much she was looking forward to a summer BBQ. We have many food orientated conversations... every day.
We are so lucky with our food on this expedition, we have the best freeze dried meals I have EVER had (trust me I’ve tried them all). They are nutrition based so they are healthy and delicious and for the first time on an expedition, I’m not hungry! More on that later...
We paddled past the bay we had planned to stay at, as we still had plenty of energy and day light. We came into the Bunsby Islands and paddled through to a small island, it looked like the perfect spot to camp as it was sheltered with plenty of wood for a fire and otters floating around in the calm water in front.
See below for our days paddling and tonights camp site. Click on the image to follow us on our GPS tracker.
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)