Justine’s Blog

“That’s a bear”, Sarah said in a slightly higher octave than usual. She was pointing at a seal in the water 200 metres from our “bear free Island”. “It’s a seal”, I maintained but at her insistence I got out my binoculars.

Magnified, I saw the light brown fur and two rounded furry ears of a bear, swimming right towards our beach.

I panicked! We were at the shore with our kayaks nearly packed ready to launch but not quite. I threw dry bags into hatches and pulled on my dry suit, imagining the bear had smelt us and was coming for it’s breakfast. Sarah started shouting and the bear suddenly looked up, he obviously hasn’t known we were there before. He changed his course slightly and scrabbled out of the water just the other side of a small sandy bluff. Sarah and I were relieved he wasn’t making a beeline for us and were even more happy a minute later to see the bear on top of the sand dune taking a look at us and then running away. He was only a small one, similar in size to the 2 year old we saw shot in King Cove. So much for our bear free Island plan although the Island was only a couple of miles from the mainland. I was glad we’d made sure we had no food in the tent overnight.

After that exciting start, we had a calm sunny paddle towards Perryville for a few hours. A blue sky sparkled above and jagged headlands, pointy peaks and snowy volcanoes surrounded us on all sides as we snaked through Islands. The wind picked up for the last couple of hours and pushed us towards the native village.

We landed on a broad sandy beach in front of a widespread collection of houses. Gary kindly interrupted his fishing to take us to the post office which shut in 10 minutes. We were too late. At 13.01pm we met the lady who worked there on the dirt road on her 4×4 heading home. But being a small friendly town, she turned around and went back to the post office and returned with 2 packages. Our food arrived ( Thanks Scott) but our bear fence ordered on Monday from Anchorage hasn’t. We were going to get back on the water tomorrow morning to make the most of the westerly winds but we’ll now be waiting for the afternoon’s mail plane with crossed fingers.

Of course spending more time in a community is not a bad thing. We spent the afternoon having a chat and food with some of the locals. We’ve been put up in a room in the city office, we’re clean and about to sleep on a bed.

I nearly suggested going back to sleep for another hour when the alarm sounded at 5am. I hadn’t slept well and the wind was due to be more favourable in the afternoon. .. But we had a mission to try to reach a bear free island about 35 miles away so we needed all the daylight hours available. On the water at 6.30, we paddled into a beautiful rising sun, a giant red orb peaking out from a distant headland bringing an orange glow to the snowy mountains on the horizon. It was worth the early start for that moment alone.

The forecast warned of a 9ft swell. It wasn’t quite that big but waves from almost every direction collided to make a sporty sea. A NW wind blew the top off the waves for the first couple of hours, which hit us side on. Sarah requested less wind and her wish was granted. The sea was ominously calm for 3 hours. Our speed dropped off about the time I realised it was a 20 mile crossing to the mainland, not 16 as I’d thought. I’d measured it from an island we’d initially hoped to camp on that was 4 miles closer! Fortunately the forecast SW wind finally kicked in giving us a nice push to the beautiful Kuprenof point, a steep craggy headland with lush grass covering the few flatter areas. About 50 sea lions lay draped over a cluster of small rocks.

Five miles around the corner, a sandy beach protected from the various swells provided a lunch spot at 3pm. We’d have been pretty happy with that 25 mile paddle on most days but we were on the Alaskan mainland, home of bears. With a following sea we set our sights on an island a bit further up the coast where we hoped there wouldn’t be any bears. We finally landed on Jacob Island at 7.50pm after 12 hours of paddling. I’m happy to report there are no signs of bears although we’re still taking precautions.

We hope to reach the small community of Perryville tomorrow where our last resupply of food should be waiting for us. It’s only about 13 miles away so perhaps we won’t set the alarm for 5am.

The thing that makes today’s Easterly wind so beastly is it’s persistence. This is our 6th consecutive day of headwinds and probably the 5th time we’ve had 5-8 days of Easterlies. All the locals here tell us the weather this year is better than usual and it’s true that we haven’t encountered the wild storms that I was expecting, but the downside of that for the 3mph paddler seems to be frequent Easterlies. The headwinds are mostly possible to paddle against but they grind us down physically and mentally. We fight against every wind wave for progress, and watch our hard won progress slip backwards whenever we stop for food or a pee. Our speed drops to 2 or 2.5 miles an hour and the 20 miles I like to paddle a day can take 10 hours. Today we have a 16 mile crossing and we woke at 7am to find the NOAA forecast had increased to a 25 knot headwind. The sea didn’t look too bad but our other forecast had also upped the ante, increasing to 17knots this afternoon. I was tempted to give it
a go as we could always turn back. I don’t doubt that we could limp to the peninsula even if we “only” got 17 knots for a time but we decided discretion was the better part of valor and went back to sleep. The forecast (finally) promises us 4 days of westerlies starting tomorrow so we’re probably better off saving our energy for an early start tomorrow and as Sarah puts it “crack out a fat one”. Still, I always feel a bit uneasy if I take the easy option and don’t give things a go so I was pleased to discover more white caps on the sea when I got up for a pee a couple of hours later. It would have been at best “unpleasant” out there today.

So as all good expeditioners do, we slept until midday, then immediately started eating when we got up ( peanut butter and salmon Berry jam on muffins for breakfast, thanks for asking)! I’m looking forward to reading and taking a short walk this afternoon and I will go to sleep dreaming of West winds (South West ideally please)!

Rousing Unangan drumming and singing brought a lump to my throat as we pushed off from Sand point this morning. We’re meeting a few people more than once as we travel along the chain including Sally from Atka who is in sand point to teach at the culture camp and who was passing through dutch harbour. Sally led the “tide is rising” song as others held a poster and waved us on our way. Three different people pressed gifts of smoked salmon into our grateful palms. Yum and yum and yum. We enjoyed some for lunch and dinner today. Thanks to everyone for another warm welcome, especially Michael Livingston for putting us up, showing us round and feeding us.

Easterly winds continue to make us work hard for every mile. Today it was a NE wind which was bang on the nose. We took 3 hours to cross to Korovin island in squally weather, cheered on only by frequent whale blows and the occasional tail. We had hoped to reach the next island, Karpa, but settled for as far east as we could get on Korovin. Partly because progress was slow and partly because the island looked particularly steep with no obvious places we could camp.

About a dozen otters interrupted their party to look at us from close quarters and many more popped their heads up at us along the impressive cliffy coast. We’re camped on a small steep beach in brilliant sunshine. The tshirts came out this afternoon in a hopeless quest to get rid of our paddlers tan ( Brown hands, white everything else!).

We have a 16 mile crossing to make from here in an ENE direction to get back onto the peninsula. Tomorrow’s forecast is NE 20 knots according to NOAA or ENE 8-11 knots according to Karel. Neither are great but if Karel is right we’ll probably go for it and accept is going to be a long slog.