Another day, another island! And what a perfect day for it. With a fairly gentle NW wind predicted and a flooding tide (north going), we decided to make a 12 mile crossing from Cape Idak, the NW corner of Umnak island to Aspid Cape so we could make the most of a following sea. This also avoided the tidal rips and confused currents in the narrowest gap between the islands. Sarah was in charge of navigating and she did a grand job.

Layers of clouds like sheets of cotton wool lay over the peaks on both islands, offering glimpses of the higher mountains although mainly our view was of the lower slopes. We could see the bold black triangular Cape we were heading for and watched it slowly take shape. Since Sarah’s mast bent yesterday, I gave her mine so she could sail. With 10-15 knots behind us, we were similar speeds which we both enjoyed.

We decided to camp at a small pebble beach besides the Cape at around 5pm after a great day on the water. On the way in, we caught another decent sized black bass which we cooked over a fire. Needless to say, it was delicious. We washed it down with a beer that Scott had given us as we left Nikolski.

The forecast is looking pretty good for another 2 days paddling at least with NW or SW winds. We’re looking forward to seeing some of the indented coastline of Unalaska as we head towards Dutch Harbour. Dutch harbour and the town of Unalaska is our next resupply point and is the biggest settlement in the Aleutians. It’s about 60 miles away if we took the shortest route but we’ll probably poke around into some of the bays on the way and maybe have a day off somewhere on the way, weather enforced or otherwise.

Right now, I’m watching a peregrine Falcon attack an eagle and I’m about to cook a marshmallow over the fire! Life is pretty good.