Day 6 - Passing of the storm

miles today: 41 total miles: 326
km today: 66 total km: 534

We just finished dinner last night and got in the tent when it started to rain. Then the wind picked up and the sky totally opened, pounding with hard rain basically all night. Chandra did a fantastic job of battening down everything in camp, getting a tarp securely over the bike, and we were snug in the rain - until some water came into the tent. We are not sure if it’s because we didn’t reseal the seams around the “bathtub” part of the tent, or if it was coming up through the floor. In any case, it wasn’t terrible, but got our sleeping pads and some clothes tucked in the corners pretty wet. Thankfully, by 7am, the wind was still up but the rain had stopped, so we were able to yard sale our gear and get things mostly dry - enough to pack anyway.

The weather predictions this trip have been interesting - different apps have forecast loads of rain while other only a bit for a given hour. But the wind forecasts have been uncannily good (we had a very nerdy conversation about weather modeling on the bike, but I won’t bore you here). Anyway, the forecast was for the 18 MPH easterly winds to calm a bit and shift to southerly all of which would be SOOO much better for the short ride today. So we waited and had a lazy morning, watching the flag on the campers by the beach slowly shift direction exactly on schedule with the forecast! By the time we got on the bike the wind was calm and we cranked out the first slightly hilly 33 km quickly and easily.

At almost exactly halfway for today, we found a nice picnic table on the shore and stopped for our usual lunch buffet of sardines, cheese, apples, etc. and the last of the brownies that Jason and Jovo sent with us.



While sitting at the table, the sun came out, the wind dropped, and the final half of the day was uneventful and easy. I was definitely fidgety and ready for a visit with family and some rest in the coming couple days with Chandra’s cousins. More on our visit tommorow, but we had a great afternoon with the kids getting quizzed on Chemistry and Geology from their science books (sadly I did better on the periodic table than rock names!) and a couple games of chess. Chandra enjoyed some dog snuggles and we had a fantastic dinner and conversation with Joanna and Casey into the night. More on our visit tomorrow.



So, I’ll leave you with the sight of more rain, after the sun went away, from INSIDE in the dry as we reconnected with Joanna and Casey and the kids and started our rest.