An unexpected tail wind had us whooping this morning as we flew along for our first 3 miles. Round the corner we had a10 mile crossing to the NE and the wind died for a couple of miles but then turned into a feisty offshore side wind once we came level with a valley. We paddled into the bay against the wind to avoid being blown too far east out of the bay. This slow safe progress was rewarded once we’d paddled into the wind enough and turned north, and we were blown in the right direction at a decent pace. Hurrah, I thought, we’ll be across in no time and have lunch on the other side. Then without so much as a 30 second lull the wind switched from NW 20 knots to NE 20 knots. We’d evidently crossed the valley where the predominant wind had been overpowered by a local effect. We limped to a waterfall half way across the bay we’d hoped to cross and decided that 11.30am wasn’t too early for lunch. The stove was busted out and Noddle soup made a great treat. We are both hungr y
nearly all the time now. One of Sarah’s most common expressions is “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse”, or occasionally “I’m so hungry I could eat a bear”.

After rinsing our salty drysuits by standing under the power wash torrent from the waterfall, we headed on. Progress into a strengthening wind was so slow that we stopped on a golden sandy beach only about 3 miles further on. We are optimistically waiting before setting up camp, hoping the wind will drop off like it did last night. If so we’ll jump back on the water. It’s 6pm as I write this and there’s no sign of that happening yet. Sarah is having a snooze in the sun on a flat slab of sandy rock which had bizarre canon balls of the same rock within it. I’ve been looking ahead to where we might cross the Shelikov strait to the Kodiak archipelago or the Barren Islands. I have a feeling we’ll be camping here tonight but we remain hopeful for a weather change.