It sounded like a whale blow just a few metres from where we set the tent up. Sarah and I both spun round to see two sea lions snorting loudly as they slithered through the water parallel to the gravely shore. They popped their fat heads up higher this time. They were definitely looking at us and all our gear strewn over the beach. Sarah made the realisation that what I had thought may be some thermal mud formation was in fact sea lion poo and we were probably camped on one of their favourite haul outs. As we filmed, photographed and grinned, one of the beasts approached the beach and started to haul his blubbery frame onto shore. Two giant flippers led the way, and I couldn’t help thinking he was like an iceberg with so much more bulk under the water than when you just see his head popping out the sea.
“What should we do? ” said Sarah imagining the damage a careless or angry flipper could do to boat, tent or body. “Should we try to scare them away? ”
Excited at the prospect of being able to watch such a magnificent beast so close but equally nervous, I suggested that we wait and see where the sea lion went and if it was close then we could move our camp further down the beach. In the end, the giant thought better of it and with a final snort, they both headed off to another beach.

This morning was much like the last two, overcast, foggy and grey with a light NE wind. Fine rain fell so lightly that it felt like the air was wet. The coastline was still beautiful and knowing we only had 11 miles or so to paddle, we took our time and poked about in some of the nooks and crannies, discovering gravel beaches at the back of caves, admiring pretty arches and weaving through the rocks.

We made camp at 2pm and enjoyed fried tortillas with cheese and salami for lunch followed by a relaxing afternoon. Despite what I said yesterday we are going to go for the crossing to Seguam tomorrow if the forecast stays at NE 10-15 knots as it’s the best chance we have all week. The last 3 days, the wind had been lighter than forecast so we just hope that extends to tomorrow aswell. We hope we might be able to land somewhere before Finch Cove to shorten the day or we can always turn back after a couple of hours if the wind is too strong.

We think the current will be going south from when it gets light until 3pm-ish – although this could be out by a couple of hours either way. We’ll try to counter this drift away from the island by heading NE from our campsite (as opposed to following the coast east for 4 miles to the end of Amlia Island) and by waiting to start the crossing about 10am. This is a compromise between getting an early start and trying to limit how much the current can push us South. The tracker on Sarah’s website will be set to update every 2 hours when we start out.

I forgot to say that last night we used or foraging skills and picked beach greens ti add to our dinner.