We woke up at 6:00. It felt amazing to wake up so early without an alarm and be wide awake right away. It was still very chilly so we immediately started putting on the layers. Two pairs of socks, muck boots, pants, rain pants, under armour, long sleeve t-shirt, sweatshirt, rain jacket, life jacket (which is way more of an insulator than I thought it would be), hat, bandanna, and gloves. We ate a quick breakfast of granola bars and packed up our camp. We were on the water by 7:00. We had our first portage a couple miles downriver and that went just fine. What didn't go fine was all the brush hanging over the sides of the river. We would come to a turn, get pushed by the current into the brush, and duck to get through it while branches and twigs broke on our heads, bodies, and canoe. There was so much wood in the boat it looked like we were trying to gather fire wood on the way down the river. In one of these instances I lost grip of my paddle. I'm sure Anders will go deeper into detail about this ordeal. Long story short, it took us about an hour to finally get it back out of the water. I felt dumb.
We made 28 miles this day from 6 am to 7 pm. I would call that a good day of paddling and a good way to make up for yesterday's 5 miles. We were only expecting to do 26 miles, but we got lost. I'll make sure to look at the map a little closer from now on. The camp we stayed at, Pine Point, was beautiful though so I have no regrets. It was on a bank overlooking the winding river behind us and giving us a glimpse of what lay ahead of us the next day. The river runs through mainly marsh land up here so there are many different channels that divert from the main one and eventually snake back in to the current. It can get pretty hard to decide where the best place to go is, but I think we did alright.
It's still hard to fathom what we're attempting, and we have a long way to go, but when I really think about it, it is truly amazing. Times will get tough, but right now I am happy.
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