Tues. Aug 28

It rained all night. I awoke at 5:30 a.m. and made breakfast in the rain. I packed and was on my way by 7:30 a.m. Having about eight miles to go to get to my pick-up spot – Lynn was supposed to pick me up at 10:00-10:30 a.m. But I wondered, as I got underway, if he would come in such bad weather. I paddled in heavy rain and gusting winds. A few miles from my destination, I encountered strong headwinds, 20-30 mph – real nasty shit! It was all I could do to make any forward progress at all. I kept my head down and continued paddling hard into the driving rain feeling actually happy to have been able to experience Tracy Arm under bad weather conditions and glad that the bad weather came at the very end of the trip. I felt numb with cold and fatigue by the time I reached my pick-up spot. I was a little late and there was no sign of Lynn. I figured he probably wouldn’t come today so I set up my tent and got into some dry polypro underwear and climbed inside my sleeping bag shivering like hell.

I was listening to my radio and at about 12:30 p.m. I heard the sound of a motorboat coming. I looked out and saw Lynn’s boat coming. He had 6 New Zealanders and their kayaks with him which he was going to drop off inside Tracy, near the glaciers. They were going to paddle out and then cross over to Admiralty Island and back to Juneau. Lynn asked if I wanted to ride in with them and back out again. I said sure and climbed aboard. He had hot coffee ready which tasted great and brought my body temperature back up to normal. Theses kayakers were very experienced and had kayaked all over the world. They were a little surprised to hear that this was my first kayak trip. As we rode into the arm, I pointed out to them the various campsites I had discovered – most of them were too small for six people, but a few of them would work out fine.

We dropped them off about four miles from the glaciers and headed back out. When we got to my camp, I got out and packed up my gear while Lynn waited in the boat, as he couldn’t dock the boat anywhere. We make it back to Juneau about 8:00 p.m. getting to see a few humpback whales along the way.