The tiny beach that we camped at last night worked just fine with the weather conditions that we experienced. We had carved out a space that mostly fit our tent. We were glad to pack up and move towards Lund this morning as rain or wind at this spot would have been a challenge. Only ate a bowl of cold cereal this morning as we our anticipating having food at Nancy's Bakery. We arrived to the small village about 8 and were told by some fisherman to beach our kayaks right in front of the bakery. It was quite convenient, although later as we were leaving the harbor master walked over to tell us that we were parked illegally. Glad she told us on our way out. On the way to the bakery we passed:

and

A friend that we met thru NOLS lives here and we had planned to meet her and her partner, Martin for a cup of coffee and treats at the bakery. She had left several days before to fill a spot on a NOLS course as a sailing instructor. We called Martin and he said that he would be there in 20 minutes. Our next challenge was determining what to order. Everything looked delicious. We settled on a fruit scone and their famous blackberry cinnamon roll, served with hot chocolate and coffee.

and

Martin arrived and we had an enjoyable conversation. We could have talked most of the morning as we both had stories to share. The sea was calming and the tide flooding. Good conditions to paddle in so we said our good byes, not however before we were approached by a women that asked about our trip. She was from Alaska and as we continued talking discovered that we had mutual friends. Love the small world feeling.

As we paddled out of the harbor, we talked about several camping locations for the evening. It seems though that weather and sea conditions are more of a factor of where we go than what we plan to attempt for the day. The NOLS sailing course was going to be nearby Lund tonight and it would have been fun to see them, but the day was still young and we paddled past the harbor where they planned to anchor. We also passed by signs designating the start of the Sunshine Coast Hiking trail. Not this time will we stop and check it out, but perhaps in the future. A point created larger waves and we were glad to tuck into a small cove for our lunch break. We had purchased some empanadas from the bakery and were looking forward to eating them We were not disappointed.

As we were eating our lunch a sea lion checked us out. Seems like we are finally leaving the houses behind and will now head into a more isolated area. There will be still pockets of civilization, fish farms and signs of logging, but there will be more areas that we pass by of just the sea and forests and mountains.

Checking out the fiord that we will soon be paddling!

The seas once again have calmed as we make our way to Lewis Channel. The saying wait ten minutes and you will have a new weather pattern seems to hold true here. We are heading toward the land of fiords and know that the wind and currents will potentially be much stronger due to channeling. Sure enough as we make our way into the channel we find ourselves having to paddle hard to make progress. Another challenge of the fiords is the scarce camping spots. There are some in this area but a lot of the shoreline does not have room for our tent. Once again we find that the best place to paddle is right next to the shore where points give us some protection for the elements. Soon though we will need to cross some large bays and will just have to push through. When we round a point we come across two folks in a canoe. They have been out for three weeks and are returning home. They have pulled in to a spot where there is some protection from the wind. We talk awhile and then they take our photos . This is the only photo of the trip that shows us paddling together!

We talk to the paddlers in a protected area.

Back out to the wind and to look for a campsite

As we cross the bay, both the wind and tide are against us. Finally we start finding areas that might work for camping. We are in a high tide cycle so the first couple campsites that we check out would be underwater when the tide comes up. A guide book that we are using has an X on a map that we check out next. It will be tight, but with some work we carve out a sight. Most likely we will stay awake till the high tide is over just in case we need to pick up our tent and move into the woods. No place to camp, but we could hang out till the tide goes back down,

We learned a good lesson about scouting tonight. After we had put the tent up we noticed what we thought was just an animal trail. We followed it a very short way and discovered that it went up a hill about 10 feet and wow there was a place to set up a tent. It had been a long day and what we really wanted to do was just eat, so we carried our cooking gear and food to the spot and had a nice dinner. The tide would be at high in just an hour and we were feeling confident that we would stay dry where we had put up the tent. We had seen a black bear earlier today so will start doing our bear camping practices. We have all of our food in bear vaults or ursacks so no need to hang which makes it easier.

Nautical miles traveled 18.7