Roy had convinced me to try sleeping in a bivy sack, but the mosquitos were out, I was sweltering, and I had a perfectly good tent with me. I lasted only an hour before I put my tent up, and I would send my bivy sack back from Port Hardy, unused. But hey, it only weighed eight ounces.

Meanwhile, some very drunk sailors wandered into our campsite during the night, and after almost tripping over us, invited us back to their boat to watch movies on their boat moored out in the cove. We kindly declined. In the morning, we woke up and found that they had not tied up their dinghy when they got back to their sailboat, and it had (luckily for them), washed up on the beach. I hooked up my tow rope and towed it back out to them, for which their gratitude could not really penetrate their hungover-ness. Karma would be with me though when my own boat decided to float away out on the west coast.

Our challenge for the day was to cross Boundary Passage, a large strait that not only separated the United States from Canada, but which also provided passage to a large number of extremely large fast moving freighters that transited between Vancouver and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Roy suggested that we cross on a rising ebb that would help sweep us down towards Bedwell Harbour, where we would stop to go through customs. This choice proved to be rather more sporting than we thought. As we paddled west, we found ourselves swept south towards President Channel and the west coast of Orcas. An hour later, we had barely cleared Waldron Island four miles to the south and had made no westward progress. Meanwhile, three freighters had came and went. Additionally, I had taken several waves to the face already, the wind had picked up to 10 to 15 knots, and water had gone up my sleeves and down my neck. I had worn my neoprene shorts and lightweight paddle top, as I was somehow seduced by the hot calm conditions in the cove at Patos Island, but now I am reconsidering my decision. My drysuit is safely tucked away where I cannot use it.

When we cleared Waldron Island, the current changed in a more favorable direction, and we made slow progress. Bouncing through tide rips down the strait as we arm wrestled the current and wind was exhilirating, so long as no more freighters showed up. I made a frantic dash the last couple hundred yards to the south end of Pender Island, just as the current threatened to sweep us past our objective. I looked south and saw a freighter appearing around Turn Point, two miles away. Perfect timing, in my opinion, and not a crossing I'd want to do again. Looking back, I think that this day was the most difficult day of the trip.

When we finally got to Bedwell Harbour, we discovered that customs was a much smaller operation than we thought it would be. I've never checked through customs over the phone before, and was tempted to answer some of their questions in a provocative manner just to see what would happen; luckily, Roy was doing all the talking.

Formalities over, I grabbed some yogurt, greek salad and a pastrami sandwich and watched kids playing in the pool. This Canada place isn't so bad after all. Marinas would help provide us some valuable culinary diversity, up the east side of the island, at least..

On our way again, an ill-decided turn around the east side of Prevost Island left us fighting counter currents and ferries coming out of Active Pass. I like to stay as far away from big boats as possible; Roy seems relatively unafraid of them, and would probably surf their bow wake if he could get that close. We eventually decided to stop at James Bay on the north side of Prevost. We had the bay all to ourselves (as we would for almost all of our campsites), except for a sailboat moored at the far end of the bay.

At 9:30 pm, it was still 65 degrees. Hot, hot.

Day 3