Justine’s Blog

Today started well. For the first time in a while, the wind and tide pushed us on our way North and NE. Despite a forecast for SW winds less than 20 knots, it was SE and gusting up to at least 30. Still, it was a helpful push and the sails really helped us to catch more waves and gain a little extra speed. In the first 2 hours we saw dozens of otters, a pod of dolphins, seals and 2 fragrant rocks full of growling sea lions. The backdrop changed between basalt columns, ragged lava flows, sweeping green hills, castlelike rocks on top of conical mounds to long back sandy beaches littered with pale logs and fishing buoys.

Every bay funneled the wind in a different way, sometimes it was behind us, sometimes offshore and occasionally in our faces as we first entered a bay. The gusts increased and I was starting to wonder what the limit was for the Flat earth sails we are using, and the deck fittings, non stretch cord and the kayaks themselves. One of my side stays, the cord which attaches the mast to each side of my deck had come a bit loose and my mast listed to the left slightly. I was worried this was putting too much pressure on the right side stay and I was right because bam, the deck fitting broke and the sail was down. The plastic on the deck fitting had broken in two. Fortunately my deck was still in tact and the kayak wasn’t leaking. We have some spare deck fittings so we can fix it.

Sarah put her sail down for a while but she put it up again when I said I thought my breakage happened due to the listing of my mast. It was interesting to see the difference in our speeds and the amount of effort we put in now I had no sail. My kayak immediately felt twice as heavy and I had to work really hard to try to keep up with Sarah, even when she just braced or used a stern rudder. Having said that, the difference in our speeds was probably not massive especially if I was able to surf enough waves, and as long at I worked alot harder (which I was quite enjoying)!

Then a gust hit Sarah hard and her mast bent out of shape to one side. They are pretty strong metal masts so that surprised me. And that was the end of our sailing for the day and possibly for a while unless we can bend the mast back into shape or get a replacement. I feel a bit foolish after the event as it’s now clear we were trying to use the sails in too strong winds but hindsight is a fine thing, I guess now we know. The sails have been great and using them is a fun learning experience for both of us.

After a couple more hours paddling, Sarah had had enough of paddling across bays in strong winds so we pulled into a small beach to camp. We immediately saw and heard 2 eagles flying low overhead and calling. It was clear they had a nest nearby. Moving to the far end of the beach didn’t appease them so we reluctantly got back into our kayaks and paddled another half a mile to the next beach. 27 nautical miles today and a great day, of course, other than a couple of breakages.

We set off for Hot springs Cove on a silky smooth sea. Puffins, eagles and ducks flew by overhead as we admired the jagged mountains on all sides. Just after 11, our reflections were shattered by an obnoxious blast in the face. The forecasted South westerly was probably funneling up the valley we were heading for and spilling round the corner. From flat calm to a 20 knot headwind in 1 minute; they do say that things change quickly round here. Still, can’t complain, by 1pm we were making fried tortillas for lunch. I the afternoon we had a 30 minute stroll up the valley to some prominent puffs of steam. The water in each hot spring was boiling as it came to the surface, then it ran down the hillside in a hot stream filled with green and orange weed. Some previous visitors had made pools using rocks but all of them were too hot to bathe in. After some engineering works ourselves which involved removing skanky weed with a reindeer antler and shifting lots of rocks, we tried to make a
pool where the hot steam joined a large river, with mixed success. The result was a shadow pool where one second you’d be hit by a too hot jet off water causing you to leap up and the next second a cold flow would make you shiver. Things change quickly on the land too! But we had fun and we are a bit cleaner again.

Tomorrow we hope to make some progress towards Unalaska. The last forecast we got was for fresh SW winds. When I send this message I’ll get a new forecast from Karel so we’re hoping it’s still the same and we’ll get a helpful push.

We set off for Hot springs Cove on a silky smooth sea. Puffins, eagles and ducks flew by overhead as we admired the jagged mountains on all sides. Just after 11, our reflections were shattered by an obnoxious blast in the face. The forecasted South westerly was probably funneling up the valley we were heading for and spilling round the corner. From flat calm to a 20 knot headwind in 1 minute; they do say that things change quickly round here. Still, can’t complain, by 1pm we were making fried tortillas for lunch. I the afternoon we had a 30 minute stroll up the valley to some prominent puffs of steam. The water in each hot spring was boiling as it came to the surface, then it ran down the hillside in a hot stream filled with green and orange weed. Some previous visitors had made pools using rocks but all of them were too hot to bathe in. After some engineering works ourselves which involved removing skanky weed with a reindeer antler and shifting lots of rocks, we tried to make a
pool where the hot steam joined a large river, with mixed success. The result was a shadow pool where one second you’d be hit by a too hot jet off water causing you to leap up and the next second a cold flow would make you shiver. Things change quickly on the land too! But we had fun and we are a bit cleaner again.

Tomorrow we hope to make some progress towards Unalaska. The last forecast we got was for fresh SW winds. When I send this message I’ll get a new forecast from Karel so we’re hoping it’s still the same and we’ll get a helpful push.

Sarah sometimes says”This is an expedition not a holiday”, well today was a holiday! We’ve decided to take a couple of days to explore Inanudak Bay which is a hot spot of volcanic activity. Otters and seals saw us on our way as we headed for Geyser Bight where two steam jets fire out from the hills high above the beach. Scott in Nikolski had told us we could walk up the valley below these and find a hot spring “quite a long way up the valley”. We set our tent up on the beach and tromped up the grassy dunes. A few herds of several dozen reindeer munched on the vegetation, some of them started when they saw us and ran off, tiny brown calves trotting hurriedly after their mothers. Two eagles flew low over us as we passed the rocky outcrop they were perched on, their gentle continuously cry probably warning us away from their nest.

After 2 hours we were pretty deep into the lush valley, surrounded by jagged mountains spattered with snow, punctuated by ribbons of water tumbling down rocky slopes. Finally we crested a hill and spotted 3 areas where steam rose promisingly from the grass. The first pool we reached was a great size and shape for a dip. The green weed covering the surface was a bit off putting but wasn’t going to stop us. Sarah dipped a finger in and almost immediately pulled it out again. It was far too hot to get in.

We had to wade across a river to get to the next one. My knee high waterproof Reed socks did a great job of keeping my other socks dry. This steam rose from a small steam. At first it seemed like it was also too hot but it fed into a non-thermal cold steam. Sarah set about making a wall out of rocks and turf and we created a small pool where the waters of two different temperatures mixed. I tested it out and while I had to leap out twice when it got too hot, overall it was great. How fantastic to have a hot water bath up in the beautiful mountains. Even better to discover it ourselves and make it own little pool.

Tomorrow we’ll just paddle a few miles east to Hot Springs Cove where we hope to have a similar experience in some hot springs a little closer to the beach.