After 3 hours we were still lost. We thought it would be straightforward to follow the coast and reach the cabin but we hadn’t counted on the mist or having to detour around cliffs. Why didn’t we bring a map or gps!? The day had started promisingly, after 2 days off at the puffin palace waiting for the wind to drop below 20 knots, we waved goodbye to Stacie and Amanda and launched into the calmest sea we’d seen for a few days. It turned out that Ugamak Island to our North was sheltering us and after a mile we were in the path of a stronger than forecast northerly wind and rows of white caps appeared. It could be a blustery crossing I thought. Once we rounded the SW corner of the island we were hit by 25 knot northerly gusts which made it hard to make progress. We weren’t sure if the wind was being accelerated around the coast but the gusts were powerful and we decided today wasn’t a day for a 10 mile crossing paddling directly into that wind. The vertical cliffs on the east coast
offered no camping options so we turned back, hoping we might be able to land by a cabin on the south coast where 3 guys are researching the sea lion colony. We think we saw someone in a yellow jacket on top of the cliffs and I was tempted to land on some rocks in between 2 beaches full of sea lions and run up to say Hi. I think I could have avoided disturbing any sea lions but is there’s a 3 mile exclusion zone around the colony so I thought better of it. We landed at the first available beach, an awkward, sloping gulch full of slippery seaweedy boulders, just a mile away from the sandy beach of the puffin palace on Aiktak opposite us. It was tempting to return to the friendly smiles of Amanda and Stacie but we thought we’d go and say hi to the sea lion researchers instead and maybe learn a bit about what they’re doing.

We should have taken a gps or map as we totally failed to find them or their cabin. We climbed up into the mist and spent 3 hours tramping up hills, traversing grassy slopes, scrambling up rocky gullies and peering into a whiteout, ever hopeful of a tiny cabin or the lake that it sits near appearing from the gloom. Perhaps we saw the lake as we saw water 200 metres below us a few times but thought it was probably the sea. By the time we descended from the whiteout, we’d missed them a second time and were nearly back at our kayaks. Time to make the best of a lumpy, hard campsite and not think about the awkward launch tomorrow morning (fingers crossed for lighter winds ).