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)