Thurlow to Hardwicke Islands, June 15th.

At 1:30 AM (a half hour after forecast high tide) I woke up to loud splashing sounds right outside my tent. The waves had pushed a pile of kelp within a foot of my tent and water was seeping up between the gravel under my tent. I got up, put on my muckluk boots, moved gear and bedding to a flat (but sloping) rock nearby and propped the tent a few feet up in some bushes. The water never came more than an inch above the gravel where I had my tent, but that would have been more than enough. I grew tired of watching and laid down on my Thermarest on the rock, my muckluks hanging off the edge. I covered myself up with the sleeping bag like a quilt. It was a clear dry night and this was pretty comfortable. I dozed off.

At 3:00AM my alarm went off. I was supposed to pack up and take advantage of the ebbing tide. The tide was safely down a few feet. I moved my tent back to where it had been, put my bedding back in and slept in for an extra 2 hours. When I finally did get up, finish packing and launched at 7:00, I wished I had started earlier. The current was helping me move at 6 knots despite a wind in my face! But all too soon the current died down, then turned against me. I moved to shore to eddy-hop, but the counter eddies had not developed yet. My speed was reduced to 2 knots. Around some points I had to work hard to climb up over rapids. On Hardwike Island I saw a cove with a large gravel beach and worked hard to get into this for lunch. The beach was nice and was sheltered from the wind.

I waited a few hours for the tide to turn and tried to head out at around 4:00 PM. When I got outside the cove, I found a gale force wind blowing in my face. I could not make any progress and had to turn back to the calm cove for the evening. Another day in which I made only half the progress that I wanted to! On this beach I found a path into the forest and set up my tent safely way above the high tide line.