We have had a lovely day today at the blue fox lodge with Colleen and Jerry. A relaxing banya ( wood fired sauna) mixed in with some swims in the sea felt amazing for our tired muscles. We’ve eaten lots of delicious food and even watched a film tonight. Unfortunately the weather forecast is rubbish for the next 5 days so I’m not sure when we’ll be able to cross from here to the Kenai peninsula. We will see. .. I still hope to make my flight on 16th but we need a lucky break.

“Would you like a beer?”, the boat captain shouted from his cabin. We’d been chatting to the crew from “Challenger”, one of 5 seiner boats fishing off Black Cape just after lunch. It was the first alcohol we’d sniffed for 3 weeks so we readily accepted. Despite the fact we had 10 more miles to paddle, we cracked one open and shared it. Half a can each was enough to have us laughing hysterically at our burps and feeling a bit light headed. The calm coastal paddle under grey drizzly skies was a contrast to yesterday’s bright sky and gusty winds. Today would have been a much more appropriate day for a 35 mile crossing but you only know that with hind sight.

It’s exciting to be in a new place geographically. We are only superficially seeing the Kodiak Islands but they do have a different feel. Sitka spruce trees stand proud in every available valley, hillside and hilltop. Even tiny Islands look top heavy with their sentinels standing tall. The damp woody smell is a new sensation for us, we’re used to the lush grasses and mosses of further West. Boat traffic has multiplied, we saw and heard 10 fishing boats today, when most days we see none. Gunshots rang out from the trees this morning; many loud bangs destroying the peace and I felt a bit sad that someone would be trying to kill the wonderful creatures we’ve shared a habitat with for three months. But seeing more people means we’re getting closer to the end of our journey in Homer, now less than 100 miles away.

Tonight we landed at Blue Fox bay Lodge, recommended to us by captain Billy Pepper. It’s the only building for miles around and is run by Jerry and Colleen. We landed at 6pm but couldn’t find anyone home. As we were wondering what to do, a boat came around the corner and it was Jerry and Colleen just returning from a 3 day resupply trip to Kodiak town. They invited us in and we had a great evening which started with champagne and ended with rum. They are really interesting people and we look forward to spending more time with them tomorrow since the forecast is for up to 35 knots from the east. The winds look unfavorable for three days right now so it’s a case of so near and yet so far. .. But we’ll see. Things change fast here and surely we are due a SW wind sometime soon! ?

After a great couple of days bear watching, we made time for one last cooked breakfast at Hallo Bay Camp and waved goodbye to new friends. 8.30am was a bit late to launch to cross the Shelikof Strait to the Kodiak archipelago but we wanted to get a reasonable sleep and leave when people could wave us off. The forecast kept changing and wasn’t ideal but we gave it a go. A surprise tail wind gave us a boost for the first 4 miles as did lots of curious otters and some snorting sea lions on a small island. It was abruptly replaced with a headwind the that caused us to discuss options. It was 34 miles to the closest point so a headwind for 30 of those would mean landing in the dark and an unpleasant day. One of our 2 forecasts called for light winds in the afternoon so we decided to continue, for now at least. The wind died right down for the next 2 hours raising our hopes again but then a strong NNE wind kicked in for the rest of the day. Sailing helped us make good speed at firs t – at
least we think it did as our two gps’s which had found a second wind both stopped working again. The disadvantage was that we were being pushed much futher South than we wanted. Without the sails we could move in a better direction but only made 2 knots. One gps kicked back into life and I did some sums. At this rate we’d reach land after midnight.

A slight drop in the wind allowed us to sail again, and we finally arrived at a headland we’d been calling Paracetamol Cape because we couldn’t read the name properly. It’s 2 steps forward and1 step back as we’re about 15 miles further south than we were yesterday. I’m sad to leave the peninsula as it was a beautiful place but happy to have that long crossing out of the way. We’re camped on a steep pebble beach covered in driftwood with a pine forest behind. I could smell the resin from the trees from about a mile away.

From here we’ll head north up the West coast of Afognak, cross to the Barren islands then up to the Kenai peninsula where Homer is.

We couldn’t drag ourselves away from the fantastic Hallo Bay Bear Camp today. We had a few jobs to do on the kayaks and of course we wanted to go and watch the bears again. Hallo Bay had allowed us to post a spare clip for Sarah’s kayak and a few other items to their base in Homer and they flew them in here for us. Sarah also fixed her broken footplate.

The highlight of the bear watching was three young adults play fighting this evening, mostly two at a time scraping and the other one watching.

We hope to cross the Shelikof Strait tomorrow, weather permitting. It’s 33 nautical miles from here to the closest point on Afognak Island. We haven’t had a working gps for a few weeks but Scott posted us one from Anchorage that seems to be working again. That’s a relief since we aren’t sure how strong the currents will be.