United States - Alaska- Aleutian Islands - Atka Island - Bechevin Bay
B24-D Liberator
We waited for the ran to stop and the weather to settle before going ashore. We had to take the dinghy to an upwind beach so it wouldn’t get beaten against the rocks. As we motored toward the NW shore the wind started to accelerate and lift the side of the dinghy up. I felt like the dinghy was going to flip from these wind gusts so I leaned forward on our inflatable hull to help weigh it down. I have a fear of being run over by an outboard engine so my mind drifts to the 101 dangers that are present to us at the moment. We finally made it to shore, but we are now almost a half mile from Illimité. I stumble ashore on mussel and barnacle encrusted rocks and head toward the steep wet grass that has heaps of Caribou scat throughout. A williwaw gust comes from the mountain tops and knocks me in the grass, I notice how fresh and damp the scat is. Gary reminds me that it was my idea to come to shore.
We somewhat quickly hike to the Liberator airplane wreck and then start our fast squishy hike back to our dinghy (the area is marshy). We are both concerned about the dinghy and the weather. Onshore we experienced some high winds and winds coming from opposite directions. There was more to see on land including an Arctic Fox, but we had no time to go look for him. We are in a remote part of the world if anything bad were to happen, this is not the kind of place you get rescued at. I was keenly aware that if our dinghy became damaged or lost, we would not be able to swim back to our yacht due to the distance and cold water, hypothermia would kick in before we would make it back.
The reverse trip back to Illimité was even more dramatic. The weather had changed for the worse, we are motoring through white cap waves looking at our yacht bucking up and down from the waves. We had planned to stay the night here; we changed our plans upon our safe return home. We had gusts up to 36 knots while taking up our anchor chain up and we then sailed out of this bay and kept going for three days.
I was quite nervous reading about the excursion back to your boat. You should turn this into a book, these adventures. Thank goodness you guys made it back safely in the dinghy.