[If you want the beginning of the story, read part 1 here, part 2 here, and part 3 here].

We awoke on day 2 of our trip to clearing skies. I used to live in Colorado, and before that, California – both locations where it was sunny pretty much all of the time. Now I live in a rainforest, and this summer has delighted us with particularly heavy rain on an excessively frequent basis. I’m sure that all of us had our moments in the weeks leading up to the trip wondering how (or why?) we would subject ourselves to a backcountry trip in such conditions. This made glimpses of sun all the more delightful!

Plus we were able to regroup and enjoy cabin comforts.

I dried my rubber boot and a companion had super glue that I used to seal the hole, along with duct tape that I brought. (And this fix actually worked until the very last day!).

My companions taped the boat that had a run-in with the cart to avoid further damage and just in case there was a hole all the way through.

After getting rest, as we approached the stuck cart with fresh eyes and rested minds, we were able to free it rather quickly (thanks in no part to myself. I was faced with recognition that I do not have a technical mind. I quickly decided it was stuck…for good…that it would take others to get it unstuck, but they didn’t give up so quickly! Phew!).

And I was able to modify features of the kayak that I was using to put myself in a far better, more comfortable position. (Or so I hoped, and indeed it was true. After the first day I was no longer in extreme pain after less than an hour! At times I could even stay in the boat for multiple hours at a time in relative comfort!).

All of this curfufulling took place as we waited for the tide to rise so that we could kayak out from the cabin instead of trekking for hours in a marsh! We even had time to read and enjoy coffee (or tea).

At about 2pm we were loaded up, stripped down to shorts and t-shirts in the sunshine, and ready to make our way to our next camp! We estimated that it would take about 4 hours paddling, but the ocean had different plans for us.