It was an early morning wake up. The put in was several 100yds away and it took us awhile to get everything to the water. There were warnings about the raccoons and sure enough between trips two of them were checking out our gear. I quickly chased them up a tree and between each carry we made sure that they stayed there.
They were oh so cute. Cuter if they stay in the tree.
A lot of houses were taking up most of the shoreline as we headed north. We will be glad to be soon moving out of the more populated areas. The weather forecast was predicting strong winds. We picked out the destination of Southey Island. When we arrived near there the weather kept improving so we decided to cross over to the Ballenas Islands. There was a potential camp site here and it would put us in a good position to make a crossing over to the next group of island in the morning. A sandy beach provided a good spot for lunch and a well needed break.
A perfect sandy beach for lunch!
The current was now flooding, the seas calm. Even though it was a major crossing, we decided to take advantage of the weather window and paddle to Jedediah. We found a beautiful site, but we had arrived with the tide being quite low. The take out was muddy so we decided to just unload enough gear to put up our tent and have dinner.
Tide is out, but it will come in and make unloading easier.
The tide came in, the tent was put up, dinner eaten and all gear brought to our campsite.
It was a peaceful evening.
Signs on a tree, directed us down a path to an abandoned homestead. The island has been purchased by Parks Canada and is now a campsite. A beautiful wooded path opened up to an old barn and a house which still had items inside. The house was boarded up, but one could still see in the windows and easily imagine what life could have been like here.
A peaceful setting.
As we continued our walk we met several folks who had come by boat and were enjoying the setting of this landscape. We also came upon a memorial that was in memory of a Canadian that had died on K2. We realized after reading the plaque that a friend of ours had been on that expedition. He had survived, The plaque gave us pause.
Words say it all.
The sun was setting as we gazed out toward the sea and we slowly walked back to our camp.
This has been a good day.
Nautical miles traveled 25.5