[Pictures here.  Now geotagged.]

We arose early on our final day - we needed to attain Shi Shi Beach and a water source there before we could rehydrate our breakfast.  The tide was again low so we had little trouble navigating the final gateway to the smooth wide sands of Shi Shi Beach.  As the driftwood at the high-water line was deep in shade at the forest’s edge, and would be for hours, we spread a small tarp on the damp flat sand, made stools of our bear canisters, and tucked into a random array of our remaining food.  My policy is never to pack food for your final lunch - by then you’d rather just hold out for the first cheeseburger.

I discovered that my camera had enough power to take a shot - but not to save it on the SD card - so I used the miniscule internal memory to take one final shot of Gen and Anna on the beach (sorry, marked friends/family only in flickr as are all my shots of friends/family - yes, you’re missing about 30 pictures out of the set if you’re not on my list.)

What can I say about Shi Shi?  It protected its secrets well, and who am I to tattle?  I’ll just confirm that it was a worthy destination, though attaining it was strenuous enough that it didn’t leave much time to enjoy its charms.  In the end the journey is always the greatest reward, and Shi Shi can be celebrated as the catalyst of a remarkable and magical expedition.

Along the length of Shi Shi we passed a number of tent encampments starting breakfast fires tucked up against the forest. Shi Shi wasn’t as deserted as the previous two days had been.  Already we were returning to civilization.  At the end of the beach one final steep climb up a cliff led to a couple of miles of forest trail, gradually straightening, widening and becoming less muddy, and eventually developing into a quite civilized set of boardwalks and bridges before depositing us in a car day-park a mile of paved road from our car.  This trail took us from the wild where time is marked by stride after stride, by tides, shadows, sunsets, and the song of the soul, and returned us again to the precise increments of omnipresent second-counting LCDs, per-minute roaming charges, miles per hour, ferry schedules.  We will learn to appreciate these things again, and ease gently into that world of objective time with a dinner reservation for a seafood extravaganza.

But part of us will always remain in that narrow strip of land between the flat sea and the towering stone along this extraordinary piece of wilderness.