Justine’s Blog

Yesterday we landed in the drizzle and mist which enveloped us for the rest of the damp evening. It was a fine, invisible rain that wets everything. Despite an earlier finish than usual we spent ages getting a fire going with damp wood and grass. We did botch a repair on the stove and it works but we’re quite fond of fires now and make at one most campsites, especially if we have a day off.

It was great to wake up to a bright morning with no rain. We woke and cooked our second fish on the fire then took a gorgeous wall up to the waterfall which topples over a lava flow. It’s about 10 metres wide and falls maybe 50 metres or more, shooting out spray and rainbows. Sarah was the first to strip off and take a wash in the river assuring me that it was refreshing and invigorating. It certainly was invigorating as it’s basically snow melt. It was type 2 fun for me, i.e. I enjoyed it afterwards- possibly like the tidal races for Sarah?

Throughout the day, gradually the clouds lifted and the sun appeared. The sharp snowy peaks of nearby islands slowly peaked out of their veils and then shed them all together, making an impressive picture. On such a gorgeous day, the islands of the 4 mountains is a spiritual place and it feels sad to leave it soon. However tomorrow’s forecast is good- SE winds up to 5 knots so we need to take our chances when we get them. We plan to get up at first light and head East about 35 miles to Nikolski. If we end up being taken South by the tide then we’ll hit land sooner and either make our way up the coast to Nikolski or camp somewhere and head there on Monday. Sarah will have the tracker on hourly updates from about 6am our time (3pm BST). See her website www.sarahouten.com

What a lovely day paddling. We were treated to mostly cruising along coastline rather than big crossings in the mist. We could look at caves, arches, lava flows, and the occasional peak at a peak in the islands of four mountains. Most of the islands kept their summits under wraps with just the occasional flirtation where they gave a glimpse of the upper slopes but the smaller Uliga revealed all in the afternoon, before mist and rain cloaked everything in a white veil.

We started the day by crossing 5 miles across Chuginadak Pass. Sarah described the passage as “easy”, perhaps in comparison to our last 2 crossings! The wind was light, there was a reasonable swell and a hard to describe energy to the water. It felt like a dormant giant that could awaken at any moment, unleashing breaking waves or currents that we couldn’t paddle against. Fortunately Goliath continued to sleep as we glided across to Chuginadak island against a gentle current. I briefly spotted a whale which disappeared after one blow and a flash of black fin.

The chart showed a few waterfalls on the North coast and we landed at the first one for lunch, admiring it’s wide cascade tumbling into the sea. Water bags full, we continued past 5 more steep ribbons of water, remarking that waterfalls are like busses.

I was tempted to cross North to Kagamil island because we may have a weather window to go to Nikolski on Sunday. The tide ( of unknown strength) will be going south most of Sunday so it might make life easier to start the 20+ mile crossing North of our target. But when we reached Kagamil pass, chunky breaking waves made it look like life wouldn’t be easier if we crossed. We landed at the very beautiful Skiff Cove towards the east end of Chuginadak island, complete with its very own tumbling cascade.

On the way in, we tried fishing for the first time. I almost immediately caught 4 fish on the same set of feathers (apparently they are rock bass?). I let two of them go and we cooked up one of the keepers on the fire tonight. Yum, although I felt really bad killing them. Sarah pointed out that it’s better to eat meat that way, caught yourself without waste than buying it in a supermarket.

Tomorrow is a rest day gathering strength for our last challenging crossing before we see other people again, and get a resupply ( and hopefully a wash! ). It’s about 30 miles to Nikolski where about 15 people live so hopefully we can do that in one day if we get good weather. Maybe on Sunday if the forecast stays good.

That’s a silly blog title and very misleading but is an old film that came to mind when we landed on Herbert island yesterday. We haven’t exactly gone bananas here but we’ve had a fun, relaxing day in the sun. We’ve dried off anything was damp, charged batteries with our powergorillas and solargorilla, cooked treats like pancakes, popcorn and potato cakes, gone for a very short walk, foraged for sea weed and now we’re chilling in the tent for a bit. Birds and sea lions cruise past every so often and the volcanos on the neighbouring islands keep changing their cloudy clothes, revealing glimpses of snowy flanks from time to time. We even saw the top of the active volcano on nextdoor Chuginadak island for about 5 minutes!

I haven’t checked the latest forecast yet, that comes in when I send this but based on yesterday’s prognosis, we might move on to you Chuginadak tomorrow afternoon when the wind was due to drop a bit.

Today we arrived in the islands of the 4 mountains, probably the best known Aleutian islands to kayakers. The peaks were socked in with mist today but when the skies open up they are picture perfect volcanos. One of then is still active and lets off steam regularly. I really hope we get to see them in their full glory. For now we are happy to be here. It was another spicy crossing despite a smaller swell and less wind. It’s about 15 miles from Yunaska but by the time the tide took us south then north and we ended up coming ashore north of the closest point, it was nearly 20 miles and 7 hours from point to point.

The tide was more predictable today and we allowed ourselves to be taken a few miles south, hoping the flood would kick in strongly and take us back North. In fact we had an hours more ebb than we expected which helped us out and things went mostly as expected, except it was still rough in places. A few times the wind picked up against the tide and the waves really kicked up and a few broke on or near us. Sarah says she found that hard to deal with but she coped great. A few laysan albatrosses flew really close, almost close enough to touch and the usual fat puffins, petrels, fulmars, guillemots ( murres) and auklets also kept us company. Honking sea lions gave us a musical exit from Yunaska, and their cousins welconed us to Herbert with a similar Orchestra.

The winds are due to turn north westerly tomorrow and pick up so we chose a campsite that should be sheltered. It’s marked on the chart as having a cabin here but there’s no sign of a cabin or any idea of why someone would put a cabin here! There is a small rocky beach which is sheltered from the prevailing winds but we’ve had to get very creative to fit the tent onto a tiny patch of bobbly grass in amongst the rocks.

We’ll have a day off tomorrow as it’s due to blow 30 knots. We’re both looking forward to a lie in. It looks to calm down after that and we may move East on Friday or Saturday. There’s no obvious water here but we manged to fill up on Yunaska today before we left so have enough for 2 or 3 days. We’re only a bit over 50 miles from the next village of Nikolski but it could still take us a while to get there if we have to wait for good weather for a 20+mile crossing.