Sat Phone

A few people have been enquiring about dropping us a line to our sat phone. Yes you can, if you wish too, it's free for you to send and for us to receive. 

This is the number +881622459708 and this is where you go to type your message http://messaging.iridium.com/

Each message is restricted to 160 characters so anyone used to Twitter can be really verbose.

We will switch the phone on every day to receive the weather though now we are not paddling The Lost Coast this is probably not so necessary as we are likely to be within marine VHF range most of the time. 

It costs us AU$1.20 to send a text so don't expect too many replies! Sorry. 

Plan B

This trip to Alaska has been in the planning stage, on and off, for about three years. The original attraction was to paddle The Lost Coast, a 900 km section of open coast between Cape Spencer and Cordova in Prince William Sound. As we are west coast junkies such a stretch of wilderness coastline proved irrestible but it was extremely hard to find any information, particularly info from people who had paddled it before. We eventually discovered two people who had, a US paddler who didn't respond to the email address I found and Paul Caffyn. 

I emailed Paul and he was extremely helpful, sending us his detailed diary of his trip along The Lost Coast in 1990. 

The fact that we could only find two previous trips along the coast and one of those was Paul's made realise how serious it was. In 900km there are only two bays, Yakutat Bay and Icy Bay the rest is 100's and 100's of kms of beach, steep beach too so dumping surf. 

Loaded double, big dumping surf - gulp.

 

Planning continued though, based on our ability to cover much greater distances than in a single kayak, particularly with a sailing wind so reducing the number of times we would have to land. Also in recent years the coast has seen many fat bike and pack raft trips, the videos on You Tube are worth watching, importantly for us they also showed the surf. And it didn't look too bad. So planning continued but not without a lurking shadow in the back of my mind that it would be touch and go whether we would reach Cordova with us or the kayak in one piece. 

Then only a couple of months ago totally by chance I came across an article in a local newspaper of two paddlers from Montana who had paddled part of The Lost Coast last summer. 

http://www.flatheadbeacon.com/articles/article/voyaging_the_lost_coast/35051

It took a while but I eventually got in contact with them and a flurry of emails full of questions and responding answers ensued. The lurking shadow got darker particularly on reading they had spent 24hrs in their kayaks as the surf prevented them from landing. 

So we hatched Plan B. 

We'd continue with our plans to paddle the west coasts of Baranof and Chichagof Islands to get a feel of the west coast conditions and if we didn't like it we could head east through Cross Sound and Icy Straight to Juneau and catch the ferry north to Prince William Sound.

We then discovered, literally only a few weeks ago, that one of this team was 29yrs old, a Grade 5 whitewater paddler who loved paddling big waterfalls. 

I knew then, why, as our planning had progressed and we learnt more about The Lost Coast the lurking shadow had become bigger and darker. 

If a team with that sort of ability had the troubles they did, The Lost Coast would make mincemeat of us. 

And they only paddled half of it. 

Finally Here And On The Water.

The moment of truth. The moment when the Virgin Australia says "Oh no we don't fly yellow kayaks on a Saturday" or some such stricture that has slipped through my repeated reading of the oversize baggage small print on their website. Despite being at the check in over two and half hours before departure the queue was horrendous but a lovely Virgin lady took us aside when she realised how much luggage we had and escorted us straight past the queue and we were checked in no time. She did mention in a concerned voice that we would have to pay $100 excess baggage and was that all right? 

$100 to take a 6m kayak all the way to Seattle - I think we'll manage, thanks.

Hey look, there's someone with almost as much luggage as us!

 

Wayne, schooner and tall ship captain was at Seatle airport to meet us and we soon settled in at his and partner Nicolle's cosy property on Marrowstone Is near Port Townsend, the wooden boat capital of western sea board. 

Dinner with friends of theirs who know Alaskan waters like the back of their hand included a feast of clams dug from the tidal flats that afternoon. 

The next few days were a mix of simply catching up with old friends and slowly getting ready. We bolted the kayak together and went for a short paddle just up the road at Mystery Bay to ensure we were reasonably watertight. This as a matter of course included a BBQ and beer looking out over the array if lovely wooden boats gently bobbing on their moorings. All to quickly food was bought and all our gear was being packed in waterproof bags for the paddle from Marrowstone to Bellingham to catch the ferry to Alaska. 

Coincidentally Australian friends of Lynne's and Wayne's from the tall ship Eye of the Wind arrived the day before we had to leave so we had quite a farewell party as finally on the water we set off across Admiralty Inlet about midday Thursday. 

We had planned to be at the ferry at about lunchtime on Saturday for departure at 6pm but fair weather, calm seas and some sailing breezes had us pulling up to the public slipway literally 100m from the ferry terminal at 10.30 Saturday morning.

Friday we had stormed along arriving at our campsite on Saddlebag Is State Park for lunch after 35km. The day was not without it's concerns though in these busy waterways, everything from fast runabouts to car ferries jostling for space in Guemes Channel, it's the first time I have wished we had a rear view mirror on the kayak. 

There was though a moment of dread in the slipway at Bellingham when I discovered I had left a couple of pieces of our trolley at home, luckily, very luckily they were not absolutely essential so we could after all get the kayak onto the ferry!

Concept Packing

Just testing that we can get everything in,  we are not overweight and each piece of kayak is the right weight.