Audio Post Transcript

Hey, this is TA calling in from Labrador 2024 Rigolet to Cartwright. I’m sitting here in the tent with Marion, and we’re getting ourselves organized. There’s a light pitter patter, pitter patter, pitter patter of rain on the tent. We’ve all just crawled in after supper. We had butter chicken and salad and rice. We’ve had a fabulous first day, a challenging first day.

We got down and got our boats out of the freight office and got them loaded pretty darn quick, and it had been flat and calm all morning, and just as we were setting off, the wind began to blow some, and the gusts began to go occasionally, and just as we had wanted, the high tide was running out Hamilton sound, but there’s quite the tidal race. So, it was some exciting with a following sea was moving along at a fast clip, but we did well, and we got through that, and got the crossing done over from Rigolet to the other side.

And once we got around the point, conditions eased significantly, but we still had that lovely tidal push out, and we kept the shore to our right, which we will do for now and probably for almost the rest of the trip. We saw several giant flocks of geese, and here at our campsite, we can tell that perhaps they used our campsite as well by the little droppings they’ve left. But it was so exciting to see them take off and get into V formation and honk. They reminded us of being on our trip “Paddling North” when we were passed several days in a row by flocks going north, and then several months later by flocks going south. So that was lovely to see them.

We also saw what might have been a walrus. Could also have been maybe one of the larger seal varieties. A couple of other things we knew for sure were seals, lots of terns. And we just had a lovely paddle, until we said it was time to make our first camp and get organized. This morning, we had to get all that gear into the sea kayaks. Then this afternoon, we had to get all that gear out of the sea kayaks. And tomorrow morning, the challenge, of course, will be to get it to go back into the kayaks. Since we’ve got a full 15 days of food and fuel, and we’re carrying five days of fresh water. We’ve got big loads on and it’s a big challenge to stuff a lot of things into small spaces. A couple people came to watch us pack and get all that stuff in the boat this morning. So that was fun to begin the adventure with some folks wishing us well. We paddled the about 15km today, and that was a lovely-great first day’s paddle.

Marian’s looking at all the things I have on the clothesline in the tent. My charts and my maps got a little wet today, so there’s she’s holding a flashlight, and she’s very excited to be holding her flashlight, because she wasn’t sure where it was. To the right of that, my bug net is trying to dry because I had supper duty tonight, so it was pecking rain a bit, so it’s a bit damp to put it away, and we’ll need it in the morning, because, hey, it’s Labrador, and when you go out in Labrador, you got some bugs, but it’s Labrador in August, so they’re not quite ready to carry us off, but it was still lovely at a late afternoon to have a bug jacket to jump into. So great first day. So excited to get underway after five days of ferries and drives and hanging out and wondering if we would get off the beach. But we got off the beach, and that was great. We hope all of our friends in St John’s have a not too crazy night tonight with Ernesto visiting, and we will catch you from tomorrow. Take good care. Labrador 2024, Rigolet to Cartwright, signing off. Good night, everyone.

InReach Post and Camp Location

Raucous start to the trip with a tidal race & big gusty wind. Got the crossing done then enjoyed a fine push from behind tempered by some lee shore. Camp is gorgeous.

TA Loeffler sent this message from: Lat 54.211124 Lon -58.236165

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