Wednesday, April 3

North 30° 33.8'
West 114° 39.4'
Distance: 11.3 miles

This is the first day of our adventure. Mike and I departed at 6:40 am. A little later than we had intended. Muffins for breakfast. We filled and packed everything and said goodbye to Gary, Linda and Greg. This was very hard for Linda, but she was tough about it and only cried a little. We had some difficulty at first with Mike's fishing rig. Gary had played with it the night before and it was a little raveled. About an hour and a half out we saw a pod of dolphins. They played with us for a couple minutes and then took off. I think they will be a constant source of entertainment for us. At about 9:00 am we found a beach that looked good for camping and pulled up. There is a house a couple hundred yards down, but we have seen no signs of people. There have been hundreds of houses on the beach so far. This was the first deserted stretch we found so far. The beach was rocky and the tide was out so we had to carry our gear up to the flat sandy part. We took out about 60 lbs. of gear out of each boat first, then carried the boats. We made a tent with two ponchos snapped together and the poles. Mike smoothed the ground and put a third poncho down as a floor. Cool and shady here. We did a short day today - 11.3 miles. We are a little tired from the last two days. We still have not caught a fish, but will keep trying. There is a rocky bottom off our beach which might attract life. We can try that later. Linda gave us two apples which we ate. Yum! We will have rice and corn tonight. I will also try some beans. It feels great to be on our way. Let the adventure begin!