It was up and at em this morning. My host wouldn’t let me leave with out breakfast. He offered bacon, sausage, eggs and several other options but I choose cereal. It’s funny the things I crave now. We ate and packed up. We stopped at a grocery to get a few more supplies to last me extra days. Now that I have a plan on when and where I am going to be extracting before the storm it’s easier to plan. We got back to the Angel's house where my boat was and went across the street and said our good byes. I paddled out into the bay and wasn’t too far off shore when I heard a voice calling and waving to me. It was the nice lady that I had met yesterday when I reached the beach. And yes she had the dog with her! I paddled back over just to show her that I had a full boat this time. We chatted some more and I was off. It was a pretty smooth paddling day. I was making decent time when I decided to pull over and take a pee break. When I got about 20 yards from the point I saw a fin pop out of he water and dart in front of me. It was fast moving and steady. It definitely wasn’t a dolphin. It was a shark. I didn’t know what to do. Do I paddle away and stay in the water where I could become a scene from Jaws? Do I try and get to shore and paddle over it and risk becoming a scene from Jaws? I decided the latter. I rammed the shore and climbed out onto the beach. With my adrenaline pumping I only had to step into about a cm of water to get out. And you are damn sure that only my pinky toe touched the water. I scanned the water to try and find Jaws but he was long gone. I also realized that it was probably only 3 ft long and was more scared of me than I of him. It made me laugh and gave me a good reason to call some of my friends who are obsessed with Shark Week. My heart was still pumping when I got back in the boat but knew I was fine. I was getting further away from civilization enjoying the nice day of paddling when a guy on his dock waved me over. He asked several questions without saying “what are you doing out here”. He thought I was a new neighbor but sure enough when we got talking I found out he had “reached his quota” of drinking a few years ago as well. It’s still an awesome feeling when I run into someone else who knows what I’m going through. And it has made me realize that there are more people than you think that have made the decision to take back control of their lives and continue to live life. He offered me about everything under the sun but I was full on everything since I was just leaving town. I hated to cut him and his wife off but I had to get moving to get to a good spot to camp for the night. I made it to the camp spot. A nice beach with a beautiful view. The only downfall besides ants was a suitcase full of trash. Still not sure how it hit there but very odd.