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Day 27 Time: 2 hrs Distance: 0.6 km / 56.6 km (motorboat) (Total paddling distance 490km, total distance on water 668km) Up at 10:00, light drizzle and fog but the winds are light so it looks good for our pick-up today. I tried several times to get a connection on the sat phone but can't get a signal and thus unable to confirm. I spent the next while having some oatmeal and packing up my stuff. There's not much to do while we wait for Jack who we expect will arrive around 4:00pm; we cooked up a batch of Mexican Rice & beef around 1:30 before a final packing up. By 4:00 the boats are loaded the shack has been cleaned up.
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We sit around staring out the window, the visibility is fairly poor, and when Jack comes we won't have much warning. 4:20 comes and goes and then finally I spot a dark blur on the horizon, it IS moving! Our pick-up is here! We rush to close up the shutters, hurry to the boats and paddle out into the big swells for the crazy transfer to the boat. After slowly making our way out beyond the tidal flats we pick up speed and bounce our way along. It's a cold ride but at least it's dry. A little past the halfway point we run into a huge pod of whales, they are surfacing all around us, after a short pause we speed off on somewhat smoother water for the final run to Churchill.
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At about 6:30 we arrived at the mooring, Jack's wife is waiting for us, we rush to transfer our boats and gear to her truck and immediately take off for the train station, apparently the train is leaving an hour early so it's a close call, while I arrange the tickets Steve see to the loading of our stuff. We have a few minutes to get out of our drysuits and into the least obnoxious smelling clothing, just time for a quick smoke then hop aboard as the train rolls out for the 16 hour journey to Thompson. There's lots of space, I get to lie back in relative comfort and NO BUGS!
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