65 Days Until Launch Con't


Changes have swept through my lists and all of our planning. We have made a slight delay of a couple days in our start date and further planned our shared food and gear. As a team we will share a tent and a kitchen, combining good gear from both of our kits. Food will be a shared responsibility as we will cook for each other only at dinnertime. This leaves me to plan for my own breakfast and lunches for 30 days. I always pack food for a few extra days and this time we will have the luxury of shipping parcels of it ahead to Wrangell and Ketchikan in the mail.

The days are whipping by fast and the reality of this adventure is coming quickly. I have been focused on our charts and navigation for the past few weeks. I really want to make sure that I have dialed in exactly which charts we will need to be safe and pass by the most hazardous "sticky outy bits" as my instructor last year referred to them. The book charts provided for home printing by the NOAA are decent for overview of the area. I've ordered a few back up paper charts for the critical areas like Cape Fox, in the event all three of our Garmin GPS maps crash and burn. The most important chart arrived this week in the mail already. It is a five foot tall tourist map of the inside passage I bought for my youngest daughter to track my progress with her marker and little stickers for my camps.

I dream of the whales and the icebergs, of paddling through the icy channels, piloting among them like a seal. It is difficult to remind myself at times that this is my ultimate goal, despite the anxiety of preparation. This week I expect to receive several shipments of gear that I needed to replace or upgrade and I will drive four hours round trip to collect expedition food from my American mailbox! (I'll sneak in a ski at the White Pass if I can.) Training for a paddling expedition when you have frozen water is challenging; I have learned to be flexible and creative and use the frozen water to recreate with. Currently I am xc skiing a few times a week and swimming twice a week with weights and the odd planking thrown in for good measure. I expect the first week out on the water to hit me hard anyway.

My dehydrator will rest again at the end of April, when I have completed preparing food for this trip. I love and hate meal planning. I learned last year when we took our kids on a multi day hike that making our own dehydrated meals was far more palatable and thrifty. My new favorite is dehydrated watermelon, oh my! Then I trained as an assistant sea kayak guide and the other students and I shared our cooking skills over a couple of weeks and I learned some great tips and tricks. Kayak cooking is unique unto itself, and I am definitely one of those people that needs appetizing food on my trips. The typical ramen noodles rarely make it in my food sac.

May attempt an April paddle in Haines, Alaska. To be determined by the weather and moods. :)