June 19, 2019 – The big lesson learned today is that it is best to judge a camping beach by its state at low tide as opposed to high tide. High tide I’ve gotten pretty good at figuring out by the fresh kelp lines, grade, and water marks on rocks. Last night I came in at high tide, which makes for an easy camp setup. When I got up this morning, the water was 50-75 meters out on mud flats. My plan was to launch just at low tide (10 am) so that I got to the big water place – the place with like five or six different large bodies of water converging in all different directions – at what I guessed would be closest to slack.
I had two choices, wait until it was high enough to load without getting mud on everything, not to mention slogging everything to the shoreline in mud I was sinking in up to my shins without carrying anything, or get mud on everything and maybe get out 45 minutes sooner, then spend hours washing mud off and out of everything. I opted for the former. On my way out there was a very large blond otter playing near the rock at my camp beach. It was lighter and about 50% larger than the otters back home. Maybe a sea otter? I took a photo which I don’t know if I’ll be able to upload with this blog right away, so if it’s not here when this is published, check back and let me know what you think.
And luckily I had no issue with any big eddies or currents carrying me where I didn’t want to go. The currents made absolutely no sense, going every which way, but then again that does make sense when you have all of those converging bodies of water. Still today I did over 13 miles. And, most importantly, I am in Grenville Channel – hurrah!
I’m in a tiny pebbled beach, hopefully with the tent far enough up to be above the early morning high tide. There is an enormous driftwood log somewhat burried into the beach between me and the shoreline, and it looks like the early morning high tide of yesterday came up to about a foot in front of the log. If I have misjudged, I’ll have time to move back and up before getting wet. BABS is up on a log behind my tent so she’s just fine.
The rain poured and poured until about noon today. Once I got to my camp beach I took everything out to dry in the wind and brief sunshine. The big stuff is now dry, so I should have a thoroughly warm dry sleep tonight. It’s not supposed to rain again until Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, but maybe I’ll be far enough south by then I will miss some of it. If not, at least I’ll have had a couple full days of dry to help prepare me for it.
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