The Last Equipment Run Through

10am Sunday, we scheduled to meet and go through everything we were bringing. Peter and I methodically went piece-by-piece through our gear. Starting with what we were planning on wearing in the cockpit and what went on the deck. Our PFD was a reveal unto itself. There is a lot of gear in a PFD! Duplicates were set aside in a pile to be put back in the storage boxes, non-functioning stuff went into a trash pile, and at-one-time-great-ideas were shuffled off to go with the next trip.

Laying it all out

Then the boats were loaded trying to imagine the balance of boat. Heavy stuff at the bottom for ballast. I put more weight in the rear to help keep the nose out of the waves. Peter put more weight in the front to combat the natural tendency for his boat to weathercock or turn into the wind. 

After loading boat, this is what fit. 

It all fit. I had to break up my sleeping gear into smaller dry bags to get the distribution right. Even with expected water bags and probably too much food, it works.

Stuff that goes on me or on the deck.

We went at it steady for four and a half hours, and we are all packed and ready to load up tomorrow night. We plan to leave Tuesday morning in time to be at car rental place when they open.

Peter's Insta360 mount

Tips for Following Along on Our Grand Paddle

 

I think I have figured out a way for everyone interested to follow our journey without having to be inundated with emails and messages every day. Whenever you are asking yourself what Peter and Jay are up to and where they are in their journey, you can just click on this link below, and it will show a map of our past and current positions on a map. 

https://share.garmin.com/PnJsGrandPaddle

The Tracks are our daily progress--don't look for any speed records here--and they are shown under the icon with two boot tracks. The path will be shown in the color blue. 

The Courses are shown in black. These courses are just very rough estimates of possible routes we might take. Please don't expect us to follow this line, except in the general direction of going south. 

There is currently no password on the link, and I really hope that it can stay that way. While I don't expect to be stopping all the time while we are paddling, there is a way that you can send Peter and I short messages. We will do our best to answer them. 

The Latest Plan for Inside Passage

There have been more than a few iterations of the general plan since Peter and I started talking about this last Fall. Here's the latest and most likely the plan that we will be following. 

June 2nd-Denise will drive me and Peter to Eugene to get a rental car. We'll put home-made crossbars onto the car's rails (the rental must have rails). At some local park or parking lot, we'll fabricate the crossbars onto the rental, then strapping the kayaks onto the vehicle. Oh, and pack the rest of the car with all the stuff we'll be toting along. We're almost sure it'll all fit into the holds of the boats.

From Eugene, Peter and I will drive to Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsyla of Washington to take the ferry over to Victoria on Vancouver Island, B.C. We'll probably just sleep in the car as best we can, as trying to find a hotel room that will accommodate 17-19ft boats is damn near an impossibility.

On the 3rd, we take the ferry across to Victoria. I think the ferry leaves early, like 0830. It'll take us several trips between the boats and stuff to get it all on the ferry. Tricky. Nathan will pick us up in his mini-van at the ferry and take us the 8-9 hour ride to Port Hardy, which is on the NE corner of Vancouver Island. Where in Port Hardy is a question still.

From wherever Nathan drops us off, we pack the boats and head out to a camp spot nearby (<5 miles).

The first few days we'll listen to our bodies (cough) and keep the mileage on the lower end of our 10-20 mile expected target. On day four, we'll reassess those unrealistic targets.

Keeping Vancouver Island on our right, we paddle, camp, eat, wonder, rinse and repeat for about 30 days.

When we hit Victoria again, we pack the boats onto the ferry for Port Angeles.  Depending on how we manage our realistic or unrealistic targets, we may continue paddling from there to a Washington State Park near DesMoines, Washington.  

At our ending point, wherever it may be, I am hoping to sell the Tesla (kayak). It will sell easier up in Puget Sound than it will in Florence. From there--again, wherever there is--we rent another car, somehow affix crossbars to the rails (rental car must have rails), load at least one boat, and drive back to Eugene. With luck and sufficient coaxing, we can get someone to pick us up for the ride back to Florence. Trip complete.