Day 14

Time: 1 hr 10 min

Distance: 3.2 km (213.2)

I dozed off and on endlessly in the morning finally getting up after 11:00. The rain has continued through the night and into the morning. I am moving in slow motion today after yesterday's workout. We decide we will leave here today but not in any hurry, the next campsite is about 25km away, without much wind probably easily doable in our standard 6-hour day. Knowing where it is and a possible alternate means we can go late if necessary. We decide to reorganize food barrel 1+2, turning #1 into a strictly trash container. At 2:30 it's now raining harder which is not inspiring much movement. We have wet river clothes from yesterday and most of the rest is in the dry but not really state, we would like to keep it that way since it's near certain we will be leaving, or paddling, or camping, or all of the above in the rain. We decide to leave at 4:00pm, serious packing begins at 3:10 but still it's 4:30 before we are actually on the water.

Getting across to the first point is windy from the East, not too strong but it's making my boat go sideways, staying on course is requiring considerable effort. At the point we talk strategy, in the distance we can make out the two points which jut out from the North & South sides of the lake, this is the only narrow spot on the lake before the big turn, we need to make it to the tip of the long peninsula on the right without getting blown across the lake, the bay ahead of us on the South shore is very deep and wide, it would be a very long paddle along the shore, we have to hope that we can cut across. First things first, we are actually at the first of two small points separated by a small bay about 500m wide and deep, we hop to point #2, the wind across this small space of "open" water is quite strong and directly from the side, in the distance past the point we can see whitecaps forming in the bay which is 2km or more deep, we agree to give it a go keeping close to shore, if the going is too difficult we will find some sort of spot to camp. No more than a minute or two around the point and into the wind I spot an obvious large campsite with a sandy landing & probably a spectacular beach at normal water levels. I turned to Steve and yelled "hey, nice campsite!", Steve picked up on this immediately with a "well? We have been paddling for an hour", I responded receptively to the idea, Steve yelled "you mean it" Great!" and with a large grin paddled off to the landing. This is a big site with tons of flat open space, enough room for dozens of tents. We select the most sheltered spot behind a group of trees and set up the hut, into dry clothes and time to settle in. 1 hour and 10 minutes and 3.2km, kind of pitiful really, it was not cold and the wind while strong was not brutal, perhaps if the sun was shining we would have continued. We pledge to get an early start tomorrow.