Alaska - Day 7

Incredibly, the morning of day seven greeted us with more sunshine and crystal clear views in every direction. Harvard and Yale glaciers were clearly visible at the upper end of the Fjord and Wellesley glacier towered over our campsite. You could still hear the occasional rumble as ice from the glaciers fell down the steep slopes and into the water.

We took our time enjoying breakfast and packing up camp. By the time we were ready to begin loading the boats, it was well on its way to low tide. While this campsite had beautiful views, it also had a long flat, rocky beach and as the tide went out the waterline moved farther and farther from camp. This wouldn’t have been so bad if it had been a nice clean, rocky beach, but this beach was covered in sharp rocks, covered in even sharper barnacles topped off with a nice slimy coating of seaweed and sea scum. In other words, not the best place to pile up gear and pack boats. With this in mind, Andy suggested an alternate approach – we could pack the boats near camp and then gently carry them down to the water. This is not generally advised as fiber glass kayaks are very fragile, but by placing straps under the heaviest sections of the boat and lifting at four points, it is somewhat less precarious. Unfortunately, this does not make the gear or the boats weigh any less, and when the boats are fully packed, they are heavy. In the long run, this approach made packing the boats much easier, but moving them down to the water…. Ugh!

Once we did finally make it on to the water, we set off at a leisurely pace heading south. Midway through the morning, Andy unveiled his morning construction project – a kayak sail! Dad and Dan quickly joined in and rafted up with the double to create a kayak trimaran. I paddled alongside because the sailing endeavor clearly required photo documentation.

Unfortunately, it was not a very windy day, so the sailing speed (1-3mph) barely surpassed the speed of the tidal current (1-3mph). During lunch, the engineering team made some modifications to the sail and a second attempt was made. For a moment, it almost felt like the wind would cooperate and the sailors would coast off down the Fjord, but alas the day remained hot, sunny, and calm.

We spent the afternoon paddling on calm water into the hot sun. As it moved into late afternoon, we began thinking about where we would stop for the night. We had already gone about 10 miles, and pretty quickly, we decided to continue making our way to Pakenham Point - another 5 miles down the Fjord. We were making good time and figured that we could get there in another hour and a half to two hours. It might have ended up taking a little bit longer, but it was worth it!

We found a beautiful campsite on a long rocky peninsula that juts out into the Sound at Pakenham point. Everyone was a bit tired out after our 14.9 mile paddle - it was after all our longest day yet - but we were also getting pretty good at setting up camp and we had plenty of water with us (in the form of glacial ice). So it wasn't long before we were all relaxing around a roaring fire and enjoying tasty black bean soup followed by biscuits, tea, and bed......