It was another rainy morning on the east coast, we hunkered down in the tent and waited for the showers to pass. We packed up camp and got ready for our paddle to Campbell river. The spot where we camped was 10km from the confluence of where the tides meet. This meant that after paddling for a few hours we would reach the confluence, then the tides and currents would be running in the opposite direction. It’s so cool learning about how the ocean behaves here, the west coast and east coast are so different and there is always more to learn. We made good time up the coast, having the headwind and the current in our favour made us able to cover twice our usual distance.
There was a nice little swell rolling in behind us, just big enough to catch in the kayaks! I spent the day eyeing up the best waves and surfing them. It made me wish I had an empty kayak I could surf and play in the waves with. For the entire trip we have had the movie Blackfish saved on Ngaios phone, last night we finally watched it. It made us both have crazy dreams and we talked about the movie and the different views and what happened, for most of the day. Neither of us can get our heads around many of the things that happened to those animals and those trainers. We made it to Campbell river by early afternoon, about three hours earlier than we had expected to arrive. We pulled up onto a rocky beach and found our place to stay for the night. Elena, one of our friends from the Coextinction film, had connected us with a local from Campbell river. We met him for a beer and to pick his brains about kayaking the narrows and catching the currents. It turned out he was originally from New Zealand, and he lived in Wanaka, the very place we were living before we started this trip! He was a bevy of knowledge and it was awesome to have been able to meet and chat with him.
We are paddling to the Seymour narrows tomorrow in preparation to paddle through the following day.
