Discovery Islands Day Two

Last night's sleep was great! No rain and no bugs in the tent. Sure, the tent was on a bit of a slope, but it was even and stoneless! We had time for an egg-on-toast with fresh coffee breakfast and after a clean-up, set off for a day trip of exploring in the Walkabout only. Our goal was to have lunch in VonDonop Inlet, across Sutil Channel. Ripples on the water promised to make it an easy sailing trip and I was very happy with that! Once I had the sails up we tacked our way out of Evan's Bay, crossing paths with a couple of sailboats; one an older wood boat with a wood mast. Hull shaped like a Friendship Sloop. Before I could tell the skipper that I liked the look of his boat, he paid me that compliment!

The winds lasted until we got well into the channel, but nowhere near our goal. I set up the oars after dousing the sails and began the long haul to VonDonop. It was a beautiful, but hot day. I counted the strokes in sets of sixty, as each one of those sets clicked another tenth of a mile off the GPS. I tried singing, but ran out of songs with the same rhythm as I was pulling.

Finally the wind picked up again as we were just outside the Inlet. I raised sails and let it take us nearly to the top. Glorious rest.

We had lunch in a tiny cove with warm water, then when the tide was drowning our little island, returned to the boat and the long pull against the wind and the flooding tide. This turned out to be a very long trip without a breath of wind to even cool my sweaty face. We arrived back at our campsite at nearly suppertime. Total distance travelled today was close to 12 nautical, with maybe four of those under sail.

Pictures at the top of this entry are of some of the Penn Islets and a view of one of the banks on our way into VonDonop.