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IMPORTANT PREPARATIONS FOR THE TRIP

This blog comes from the Thunderbird Inn in Port Hardy where Shawna, Leon, Matt & I are sparing no expense and sharing a room! Matt has driven us up here and will drop us off at the ferry bright and early tomorrow. We have been told we need to be there by 5.30 for our 7.30am ferry to Prince Rupert. Yikes, very little sleep again tonight as it’s 11.30pm already! We won’t exactly get to make the most of what might be our last bed for several weeks. The drive up through Vancouver island was more built up than I had imagined but we did see 3 black bears close to Port Hardy which was pretty cool.

THE THUNDERBIRD INN!

MEDITATION ON THE FERRY TO VANCOUVER ISLAND

So we’re nearly ready to go! We leave the San Juan islands tomorrow morning on the 7am red eye ferry! Tonight Body Boat Blade hosted a farewell BBQ which was fun & I gave a talk about some of my adventures. Shawna has designed some great t-shirts about the trip which her and Leon are sporting here. We’re selling the t-shirts to help pay for some of our food on the trips & also to raise money for the Sea Doc society who work to preserve the marine environment. If anyone wants to buy one then please contact Body Boat Blade – there are only a limited number ( 60 ). Email info@bodyboatblade.com

It will take us 3 days to get to Haida Gwaii. Tomorrow we drive up to Port Hardy at the northern end of Vancouver Island. On Tuesday we get the ferry from there to Prince Rupert in mainland Canada, then on Wednesday we take a ferry from Prince Rupert to Skidgate in Haida Gwaii. On Thursday we need to take an orientation to make sure we know how behave in the national park of Gwaii Haanas, then we’ll finally start paddling on either Thursday or Friday!

We have hired a satellite phone ( generously paid for by Kokatat – thank you very much!) so we hope to do daily website updates on this blog. We’ll phone Mike DuPas from Orcas island and he’ll kindly write up our daily report for us. He’ll show a google map of our position and hopefully the odd photo of the locations, as we probably won’t be able to email photos back for a while.

So here are a few brief details of the plan! We intend to circumnavigate the 2 main islands in a figure of eight, starting with Graham island in the north. We’ll head up the more sheltered east coast and then round the exposed west coast in a counter clockwise direction. We’ll cross back through the strait between Graham and Moresby island, stop in Queen Charlotte City to resupply with food and charge camera batteries before heading around Moresby island in a clockwise direction. Gwaii Haanas Park on Moresby will be the highlight of the trip so we’ve saving the best for last! Paddling on the more sheltered east coasts first will be a good warm up! So, I’m excited for the trip. It’s nearly midnight as I write this and a small group of us are still up chatting. The wake up call is at 5am – I wonder how much more of this whisky we’re going to get through!!?

Here I am on Orcas Island once more!! There is just 1 day left before Shawna, Leon and I leave for the long drive and ferry rides up to Haida Gwaii and our expedition around the islands. The shop at “Body Boat Blade” is covered with all of our kit as we try to sort out what to take and what to leave behind. It’s not even 9pm and I’m feeling pretty tired from jet lag. It’s definitely nearly my bed time!

Thanks to Chris Heffernan & Nando Zucci from Johnson Outdoors for delivering me from Vancouver airport to the Orcas Island ferry ( via a few immigration adventures and a very nice hotel!)

So, on the eve of our adventure, I’m told that Leon has received several emails from men wondering what he did to get on a trip with 2 ladies!! Here is one of them ( from someone who will remain anonymous)!
———-
Leon,

When I read that you will be traveling to some very remote location with Shawna AND Justine C. I have to ask this question:

How can I become a stud like you?

Should I learn to paddle with greater skill? Shave my head? Become more charming? Please share your secrets with me. I promise I won’t tell anyone else! Better yet, you could publish your response on your website so that men everywhere can benefit from your obvious skills. If you do publish this, please change my name to “Paddling Solo”
————–

That made me laugh anyway! So final packing and shopping tomorrow, then I’m giving a talk on Orcas tomorrow night… then we’re off!! Very exciting!

I’ve just been out to sea for almost 48 hours without stepping on shore. Not in my kayak this time, but on board ‘Lightning Reflex’, one of the yachts in the 3 Peaks Yacht Race. We seemed to encounter every possible condition from flat calm to a full-on Force 9 storm sending sheets of water spraying all over us, inside my clothes, inside the boat, all over my sleeping bag… you get the picture. It was amazing to be on the sea in such an angry state and for once I was glad I wasn’t in my kayak. Not that I was particularly happy to be on a small yacht either!! I’ve done very little sailing so to be perched on one side of a yacht looking down at the other side being buried in the heaving waves was a pretty scary experience. I couldn’t believe the boat didn’t capsize, but I guess that’s why yachts have 3 tonnes of lead in their keel and kayaks don’t!

I wasn’t sailing, just filming the mayhem! The crew did amazingly – staying out in the storm all night and getting us safely to Whitehaven. I managed to get some sleep inbetween filming, although when the boat was keeled over with it’s starboard side in the sea, I had to hold myself in my bunk on the port side so there was no sleep to be had at al l!!

Now while the 2 runners on each boat bike to Scarfell and then run up the moutain, I’m in a hotel room recovering with hot water, hot food and soon to be a good sleep! I’ll be woken by one of the other camera crew in a few hours and taken to another yacht where I’ll film the last leg up to Fort William. I’ll post some photos when I can!

You can follow the race at their website here – http://www.threepeaksyachtrace.co.uk/ ( sorry, I can’t do links from my mac). They even have live tracking of all the boats.

Thanks to Arran Cartwright for the photo of Lightning Reflex & Vlad by Bardsey Sound.