After 5 days in Nikolski with mostly unfavourable winds, we waved goodbye to our new friends and headed northeast along Umnak island. To start with we could sail across the wind and the tide was helpful but after 3 hours the wind turned northerly, the tide was against us and thick keep hindered our progress. Still, it felt good to be back on the water, moving forwards, and seeing lots of wildlife. The silver lining of the kelp beds was that each one housed several otters who lounged casually on their backs or poked their heads up curiously at us. Several were in pairs of almost the same size, I’m not sure whether we were looking at a mother and fairly large baby or if it’s time for otters to make babies?

It’s great to be coastal paddling, rather than worrying about what the currents will do to us on a crossing. We kayaked past lots of stumpy black cliffs of contorted basalt columns, dotted with caves and arches, and sporting gargoyle like spikes and prongs.

We landed on a long curving black beach after about 8 and a half hours and 22 nautical miles. We hope the weather will allow us to reach hot springs Cove tomorrow where you can probably guess what the main attraction is!