The rain is gone and the seas are flat calm when we awake this morning.  Perfect!  I wasted no time getting my kayak in the water.  

First, I wanted to paddle to the end of the bay to see if much had changed at the Nordland General Store.  The store has been here forever. On my way, I spotted a couple of horses in a small pasture.  Unfortunately, I had to shoot right into the sun.  It’s not every day that I get to photograph horses, so I took the shots anyway.

When I got to the general store, I was sorry to see that they’ve let the store get so run-down.  But, it still seems to be the gathering spot for the locals.

Next, I decided to paddle up the South arm of Kilisut Harbour.  I paddled and paddled, and didn’t seem to be making much headway.  I couldn’t even catch up with these Canadian Honkers.  I wondered if it was because of my new, longer paddle.  It finally dawned on me that I was paddling against a strong current and a bit of a headwind. 

My arms were getting tired, so I turned around and headed for the boat.  Going with the current and wind was soooo much easier.  I relaxed and let the wind and current carry me along. 

On the beach, some movement caught my eye.  Raccoons!  They were way in the distance, but I was so excited, I took a couple of shots anyway.

After dinner, around 1800 hrs, Al decided that since we will be leaving for Hunter Bay, on Lopez Island in the morning, we’d better move to Fort Flagler Marine State Park, near the entrance to Mystery Bay, tonight, which will shorten tomorrow’s run.  However, once we got to Fort Flagler, Al decided we might as well keep going to Hunter Bay, since the wind was calm and there wasn’t any fog.  I reminded Al about our vow never to leave an anchorage in the afternoon, having suffered dire consequences in the past.  However, Al was convinced that traveling conditions were just too good to wait for tomorrow and take a chance on what conditions will be in the morning.  So, we continued on.

Al figured, that averaging 8 knots, like we usually do, we should get to Hunter Bay before dark.  He said we’d have the current against us until we got to Partridge Point, but, according to the current chart, we would have the current with us the rest of the way.  

I looked at the knot meter when we headed into Puget Sound and we were averaging about 4.5 knots.  Not good.  We got to Partridge Point, and we were still only doing 5 knots, except for about 15 minutes when we got up to 8.9 knots. It was raining.  I spotted two targets 8 miles to the southwest of us on the AIS.  They were doing over 20 knots and gaining on us pretty quickly.  We would have to cross the shipping lane to enter Hunter.  It soon became evident that we couldn’t make it across the shipping lane ahead of the ships, so we throttled way back.  About that time they throttled back to 14.9 knots.  By now, we could see that one target was a ship, and the other target was the ship’s tug, or pilot boat.  They slowed down even more, as we throttled back even more and changed our course so that we were headed back toward their sterns.  By now it was 2130 hrs and getting dark.  It was obvious we would have to feel our way into Hunter Bay.  Not good.  Al decided to head for Watmough Bay instead.  Watmough was only about a mile away, and the entrance was wide open.  

I could see three AIS targets in Watmough.  There are three buoys in Watmough, so I assumed the targets were probably on those buoys.  However, when we got closer, we could see anchor lights all over the bay.  This is apparently a very popular anchorage.  Since it was pitch dark, and there were probably crab traps all over the bay, Al didn’t go very far into the anchorage before dropping the hook.  We’d cheated Death again.