The wind picked up in the early hours of the morning, whipping at the tent and the tarp. By the time we woke both were dry, it was such a nice surprise. We stayed in the tent, keeping warm while we waited for the current to turn in our favour. It would be no use if we tried to paddle against the current, we would struggle to make any ground at all and we would become very tired very quickly. As we waited, the wind grew stronger. By midday when we got on the water it was gusting around 10 knots, this would be ok if it wasn’t a headwind. It felt like a tough slog on the water today, battling the headwind and struggling to avoid eddies and turbulent water. We tried to hug the coast to avoid the brunt of the wind, but this made other complications with the current, we made slow progress and we both became frustrated and short tempered. We encountered areas of turbulent water that were kicking up steep waves, they were hard to paddle and made us both very wet. After three hours we had barely covered 12km. My neck and shoulders were aching and I could see Ngaio constantly trying to stretch her back. We decided to paddle for another 10km then call it a day. We were both so relieved once we decided this that things instantly felt better. The wind had dropped a little which made the paddling easier and it looked like we would have time to set up camp before the evening rain set in. When we pulled up to the beach it was just on dark, we unloaded the boats as fast as we could. I made a driftwood scaffold to hold up the tarp while Ngaio put up the tent and filled it with our camp gear. Hopefully our bodies can recover tonight and we wake up feeling ready for action!