Most of the interesting stuff yesterday happened after my post, so i thought it warranted another.

I will try to include here my mistakes and oversights as well as my victories. I want this to be real, and don’t want to say everything is rainbows and sugar all the time…thats boring.

I’ve already told you about my iodine tablet misplacement, which on this trip is a small mistake, but would have cost me the entire trip or even my life had I been in a more remote place in the world. I dont know what happened to them, swear up and down that I packed them, but the simple fact is they’re not here. Rookie mistake.

So, last night I talked to this dude who said it was supposed to rain. No bigs-rain fly on the tent, dude. What he did not say was thunderstorm. So here I am on the beach about 6pm and i see enormous cumulonimbus clouds to the west and hear thunder…great.

So i hop up, in my underwear, and start running up and down the beach for a new spot for my tent. As great as my first one was, it was inviting to lightning-open metal frame on the beach.

I can’t find a spot that already exists, so I make one. With my machete i cut down a ton of foliage under the smalles tree in a grouping (and I can confirm im still not allergic to poison ivy) because thats where you’re supposed to do it.

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I get my tent set up and leave everything metal and useless on the beach in dry bags…lightning is attracted to friction as well as height.

I climb and wait…before freaking out about the water level and run out to move the yak on top of the next sand shelf. Its a good thing I did because the water level rose I’d say about 5 feet inland (as opposed to 5 feet higher) and would have washed my boat away.

Bottle of sunscreen indicates where the water came up to.

Bottle of sunscreen indicates where the water came up to.

So now that the boat is good i really am digging down in the tent for the night. The storm rolls in with some violence and is really knocking my tent around. Im glad its a good one because i dont think itd held up otherwise. Lightning rocks the audible area for about 2-3 hours and echos through this river valley with some freaking noise.

I thought to myself that if lightning never strikes the same place twice, it must surely be running out of spots…and soon it would be my spot, haha.

But all is well. I made it through my first real storm out here and will be more vigilant in my future weather forecasting and prep. Today is looking great.

I’m going to dry off a bit and keep it steady again. I’m getting into this trip like you would a hot bath, nice and slow. I think day 5 or 6 I’ll begin my bent for efficiency and ratchet up the miles.