7:15 am to 7:15 pm

It was evident that I should have not bothered to camp within the Apostle Island National Lakeshore. I left Red Cliff and arrived to the mainland backcountry campsite on the west of Sand Point about 3 pm leaving hours and hours of flat calm conditions. Perfect for some nice lighting photography of the caves of Mawikwe Bay..formerly incorrectly known as Squaw Bay. ... Anyway getting to the Clover Town Park in Herbster would also have been a bigger step towards Duluth. Yes I was eager to be home and take a break before continuing to Grand Portage where I began with Dave, Amy and Wilderness Classroom intern Dan on May 9th...to get my vehicle. There were no more 'designated camping options between Herbster and ? Duluth.. I decided somewhere near the Brule River would be a good goal for reaching Duluth the following day. The light south wind marine forecast changed to a not so nice SW 10 to 15 knot wind.. Basically a headwind....waves 2 feet or less with condition ranging from calm to nearly 2 feet. I kept plugging away at it despite my injured shoulder. It wasn't the biggest day miles wise but it was a 12 hour day..minus a long 1 hour and 40 minute lunch break at the Clover Town Park in Herbster. I stopped briefly one other time to refill my water bottle. I thought about how without my overuse injuries doing big days with the long summer hours makes sense. Due to the headwind I think the distance was only about 30 miles.. My longest miles day was about 43 and that was about a 9.5 hour day. Camping at the Bois Brule River...(stealth camping as it were) left me about 21 miles to my house in Duluth.

As it turned out the SW wind had waves where I was camped creating difficulty with my stern first skeg deployed launch required with my problematic gravity drop skeged Necky .. I took on a fair amount of water and actually forgot to pull the skeg down so began the day heading down the beach to the more protected corner. These are from before heading around the corner and at the very end I just paddled off to the point creating the bay since it was all choppy reflecting wave actin with no chance at photos and I've seen these caves several times.

Still protected..

Me without hat..

Heading toward Roman's Point

At Roman's Point

More of Roman's Point formations

Bark Point

Where I took my long lunch... Herbster's Clover Town Park

On toward Port Wing

My refill water bottle break.. Private property as it turned out...

On toward the Bois Brule River...late in the day

Stealth camping near the Brule....

Another sunset over Minnesota

Black River Harbor to Joe Rose's camping

I had been concerned about how to or where to camp in the Bad River Indian Reservation. Dave and Amy had told me about a guy they ran into back when they paddled around Superior in 2006. Bad River Band of the Superior Chippewa member, Joe Rose has some campsites and is also a professor at Northland college. I never met Joe but did meet his neighbors Steve and Melinda...and kids. It was kind of amazing I paddled up to this group who turned out to be right at the nice camping option.. The kids insisted I land where they were and what do you know.. It's the right place.

A few more shots from the night camped at Black River Harbor.

You could see the sunset and sunrise from this campsite. The sunsets will no longer fall into the horizon of 'The Lake'.

Leaving the Black River Harbor it was about 15 miles to Little Girl's Point...where I had lunch.

Then it was off across Oronto Bay to Marble Point...about 9 miles. Then I just picked a spot a bit this side of the Bad River and figured I'd go talk to someone from the reservation about camping...

As luck would have it I paddled right to the place Joe Rose has some campsites and was invited by his neighbors Steve and Melinda and the kids who really liked when my kayak hit the beach!

My campsite .. View back from where I came...and toward the Bayfield Peninsula

No more sunset into the horizon .. Steve, the kids and a neighbor.

Ontonagon to the Porky's

I paddled 18 miles or so this morning. It took 4 hours. I decided to camp at the Union Bay campground with so much day left as the afternoon was supposed to be a stormy one. It's supposed to be light variable winds the next couple days so I hope it holds accurate. It rained as I was setting up my tarp but was then showers off and on...though one strong storm just missed us potentially with 60 MPH winds!

Oh..here's the sunset last night.. Not only did I have the 'night light' but they were shooting off serious fireworks last night as well.

Several fishing boats were out in front of the Ontonagon River

The Porky's in the distance

This is an old wooden shipwreck . Note the Great Blue Heron

No beach below the campground so I used the boat ramp

View the other way .. More storminess