Apostle Islands, Trip 2, Days 3 - 6

On Day 3 we circumnavigated Oak Island, which is about 12 miles. It was a gorgeous day and I had enough sitting around on Day 2 so was ready to go. I had my underwater camera housing so I had tons of fun taking photos. I really love taking photos and I just love digital cameras!

Julie getting into her kayak

Julie

After the paddle I went swimming in the bay. The water was about 45 degrees, but with my wetsuit it felt great. Here are some photos from that.

me enjoying the water - the white spots are from water droplets on the lens

the water was so clear!

I climbed on the back of Julie's kayak while she paddled around and got some cool shots including this next one.

the end of a wonderful paddle

The end to a wonderful day

On Day 4 we left oak Island and headed for York Island for our final night of camping. It was cloudy and overcast, but the water was like glass.

me paddling in a borrowed Valley Aquanaut boat.

After taking my Vela on the trip the previous week I decided it's just not the right boat for me. It fits great, but it's too small for touring so I am going to sell it. I might buy a friend's Aquanaut so I borrowed this one from Rutabaga, where I teach kayaking. I really liked it.

leaving Oak Island

Day 4 was a nice, gentle paddle. there were crickets all over the water, even a couple miles from land - thousands of them. Apparently, they hatched the night before or something and were floating everywhere. It was quite odd and because of the large quantity pretty gross too. We asked several people about it, but no one really knew much.

On Day 5 we stopped at Sand Island to see the sea caves (a highlight for me) and the lighthouse and the junk that is still on sand from the first half of the century when about 100 people lived on the Island. Julie likes old junk so she enjoyed that part.

After getting to the mainland we found the last hotel room within 30 miles, showered, ate dinner, and slept in a bed. Then on Saturday, went back to Meyers Beach to see the sea caves that are on the mainland. There are about 1-2 miles of sandstone sea caves. It looks as though Arches National Park and the Canyonlands in Utah were transplanted to the clear, cold, blue waters of Lake Superior. It's super cool. Basically, overtime the water carves away at the sandstone and creates these cavernous openings large enough to enter. In the wintertime you can walk on the ice out to them and go exploring amongst the icicles and frozen waterfalls. It actually makes me look forward to February!

I actually don't have that many sea cave photos, despite how much I loved it, but here are a few.

Julie enjoying the sea caves

A view of some of the caves

I love this photo! - Julie entering a sea cave

Only in Wisconsin would you see someone dragging a
cooler (probably loaded with beer) in a separate kayak!
hmm...maybe we could do that with our dog Jake.

What a great trip!! The Apostle Islands and Lake Superior are really amazing and I hope to go back again next year. The crystal clear water, the interesting weather, and all the wildlife make it seem almost enchanted at times.

Happy adventures!
-Amy

Apostle Islands, Trip 2, Day 2 continued

It was interesting to just hang out on the island in one spot all day. The weather was crazy, all over the place. At times we could see Bear, Otter, and Manitou Islands, each about 2.5 miles from our site. At other times it was so foggy you wouldn't even know they were there. I could see how Lake Superior had caused so many ship wrecks over the years. it was quite impressive.

Here are a few photos from the day...

This is definitely in the top five for the 500 photos I took over the week. Taken near sunset.

The next four photos were all taken from our campsite over about a 30 minute period, about 5-7 minutes apart. You can see how fast the weather was changing. It was fascinating.






more on the next post...

Apostle Islands, Trip 2, Day 1 & 2

A few days after returning from my first Apostle Islands trip I left for my second one, this time with my partner Julie. We had a great six-day itinerary and were very excited. Unfortunately, the weather on our first day was pretty bad - waves 4-6 feet, small craft advisory, winds 15-20 knots. We were a bit anxious about the trip so we decided to postpone our departure by one day.

Julie organizing the gear the night before we left

So, we left on Monday, August 20 from Little Sand Bay and paddled the 10 miles to Oak Island. Since there was a 15 knot east wind we should have paddled along the mainland until across from Oak, done a crossing and skirted around oak to the North side, campsite #6, but that's what we know in retrospect. instead we decided to do three crossings and hop from York to Raspberry to Oak Island. The small craft advisory was dying down and waves were 2-4 feet with an east wind. The first crossing went well. We had 4 foot waves, but we were excited by how well we were able to handle them. However, the second crossing was were things turned for us. We were heading straight into the wind, which sometimes can be easier because you can see the waves and you have a nice perpendicular angle to them. However, the wind was kicking our butts. In calm weather the 2.7 mile crossing should have taken about 1 hour, so we figured a little longer than that. But, after one hour we were halfway across and stuck. We were paddling and not going anywhere for at least 20 minutes before we realized our predicament. At this point it was 4:30pm and I was really hungry and had to pee. We decided to cut north slightly and head to the lee side of Raspberry Island. That took another hour and by the time we landed I thought I was going to cry I had to pee so bad. I was contemplating just going in my boat, but I kept thinking it was just a little further I can make it. I did make it, but it was painful. After food and urinary relief I felt much better. We didn't stay long since it was now 5:30 and we still had about 3-4 miles to go to our campsite. We skirted around the south side of Raspberry and began the last crossing to Oak. As we got closer to Oak the waves mellowed out to about 2 feet and life got a little easier, well at least for me. The combination of eating mixed nuts and the more rhythmic, calmer waves led to Julie feeling sea sick. She looked a little pale, but we made it around Oak to our campsite by 8:20pm. It was great site (as you will see in all the photos). We were greeted by a friendly deer who Julie named Sophia (Julie names everything). She hung around while we unloaded our boats and changed into dry clothes. After a delicious mac and cheese dinner we slept very soundly.

The beach at Oak Island, campsite #6

one of my favorite photos from the trip

Julie throwing rocks on the beach

the fog from our campsite

Day two of the trip was cloudy, foggy, and rainy and we happily lazed around the campsite, reading, writing, walking along the beach and doing just about nothing all day. We were on vacation!

More details on the next posting (I can only post 5 photos/post so I have to break it up to add more photos)

Textures

I've joined an online group dedicated to working through the book Finding Your Own Visual Language: A Practical Guide to Design & Composition, by Jane Dunnewold, Claire Benn and Leslie Morgan. One of the early exercises asks you to find textures and scan or photograph them. I went a bit crazy last week finding textures while on a trip. Here are five of my favorites.

rocks on Oak Island

I was particularly impressed with how good the macro setting on my point-and-shoot camera was (Canon Powershot SD750). It would focus when I was an inch away from an object.

Birch tree

Lichen

The side of an old gas can found on Oak Island.

The Apostle Islands were the site of lumber and quarry industry several decades ago and there is still some remains of these operations on the islands.

The red sandstone sea caves on the mainland off of Meyers Beach.

Don't hold your bathing suit too close to the fire

At the last minute I was invited to join a family on their five-day kayaking trip to the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in Lake Superior. They asked me to come along to basically be a safety boat, perhaps do some instructing as well. I was thrilled at the opportunity and quickly packed my stuff, ran last minute errands, rearranged some scheduling and 36 hours later I riding in the backseat of a car for the 6 hour drive up north.

The trip was organized by a couple who invited other people from both sides of their family and resulted in seven people, age 22 and up. They started planning months ago and hired me to teach some of them some rescues a few days before they were to leave. Towards the end of the lesson one of them commented, "wow, Amy this has been great. I wish you could go with us." i smiled and half jokingly said, "well I'd go if you'd pay me." Little did I know what that comment would lead to!

The trip was great. We had nearly perfect weather, calm seas, and really they didn't need me at all, which was exactly what some of them thought from the get-go, but others were more hesitant about the trip and felt better with someone more experienced tagging along. However, it was my first trip to the Apostles and my first trip in my new P & H Vela sea kayak and even before this trip I had another trip to the Apostles planned for only a few days after we returned. nearly two weeks in the Apostles in one month! So exciting.

me standing in front of my new boat

Anyway, the trip started with all of them taking a 3-hour lesson on Lake Superior that was required for them to rent their boats from Living Adventure. I stayed on shore and packed and learned how small the Vela boat really is (only 15'8"). I also got to talk with Gail and Grant, the Living Adventure owners who have a stellar reputation in the WI paddling community. They are great folks and hopefully our paths will cross again.

The first day we paddled one mile to Basswood Island, a distance that took about 20 minutes. For most kayakers a paddling speed is very similar to a walking pace, about 3 miles/hour. The short paddle enabled us to take our time packing and ease into the trip slowly. It was a nice beginning.

Days 2 and 3 were spent on Oak Island group Site B. Oak is a gorgeous island and well maintained by a volunteer ranger.

Sunset from the dock on Oak Island

On day 3 four of us paddled to Hole in the Wall and back. We would have gone all the way around the island, but we didn't have enough food with us. we were just planning to go out and play in the boats for 30 minutes and ended up deciding to paddle to Hole in the Wall, 5 miles each way, so we weren't prepared for lunch. It was a lovely paddle and one of the highlights of the trip for me. I love the rocky sandstone formations of Lake Superior.

Carrie and Ellen paddling near Hole in the Wall on Oak Island
(even though it looks tropical the water is 50 degrees!)

At the end of the day I was practicing eskimo bow rescues with a couple folks and got pretty cold, so that night decided to try to dry my bathing suit over the campfire so I didn't have to put on a wet one in the morning. Everyone else had been doing this all week. Justin was our fire tender and was happy to hold my bathing suit for me with his stick (that he carried with him all week on his kayak). However, at one point he got up to do something else and I figured I'd take over for a bit since it was my bathing suit and he didn't need to do all the work for me. the bathing suit was steaming as i held it over the hot fire. I kept checking to make sure it wasn't catching on fire. well, I should have known with nylon that it wold melt before it would ignite and sure enough it did - right in the center a 1" x 2" section melted! Oh well, at least it didn't create a hole!

Justin holding my bathing suit (before it melted)

After Oak we had a 10 mile paddle to Sand Island and stopped on both Raspberry and York Island. As we approached Sand the waves were picking up so we couldn't go in the sea caves, but the next morning it was like glass so I got up and headed out to the caves with two others before breakfast. The sea caves were another highlight for me and made me even more excited to return the next week.

paddling through the sea caves

I learned a ton during this trip and was very excited to apply some of that knowledge the following week for my vacation trip to the Apostles. See the next post for photos of that trip.