After the previous two eventful days, with waves and big wind, the 23rd was relatively uneventful. Paddled along some pretty coastline but were in increasingly protected waters, as we moved into Fitzhugh Sound and behind Calvert Island to the West. Towards the end of the day, we misread the chart (actually, I misread the chart--Carl deserves no blame for that one!) and overshot our planned campsite a bit. That evening and for several days before and after, we were somewhat limited in where we could camp; tides were quite high at night, so beach camping was out. However, we were successful in finding a comfortable upland site in a cove East of Addenbrooke Island, after retracing our route by a half mile or so.
On the 23rd, we decided that we weren't going to try to cross Fitzhugh Sound and travel through the Hakai region before making it to Shearwater. Carl had been a little turned off by our intense open water experience around Cape Caution, and I was worried that we were increasingly far behind schedule. Not a crisis by any means, but I was hoping to meet Emily in Ketchikan around July 14, which wouldn't happen if we made too many further detours or took too many low mileage days. In the end, I was a little disappointed that a visit to the apparently beautiful Hakai wasn't in the cards, but a bit relieved, too. It probably turned out for the best, since our straight shot up to Shearwater, then up Princess Royal Channel, rather than Laredo, saved us several days and probably allowed us to get back on schedule. No doubt it helped that we were paddling faster, too! And with Cape Caution, Dixon Entrance, an hopefully the outside of Chichagoff included in the itinerary, I figured I was getting a reasonable helping of outer coast paddling.
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