By far the most challenging day of the trip, in every way.
Cape Caution is a serious piece of coastline, according to every legitimate observer, from Vancouver on down. Weather predictions were for some wind and 1 to 3 meter swells, which was big for us, but maybe the best we were going to get, and we were pretty sure we could handle it. In the end, we disagreed on how large the actual swells we encountered were--I thought they were significantly larger than 3 meters due to depth effects--but we felt unable to land because of significant surf throughout. The end was a 12 hour continuous paddle without breaks, traveling far away from the coastline, and through the biggest conditions I've ever paddled in. Beautiful coastline, however, and fun (for me) to paddle in those dynamic conditions with swells, wind waves, current and clapotis. Carl didn't enjoy it much, though I was pleased with my relative comfort with those big waves by the end of the day.
We capped off the day with a botched landing in very small breaking waves at Red Sand Beach, several miles Northeast of Cape Caution, which left me with nothing worse than a wet and sandy cockpit. A lovely spot to camp!
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