Kayaking around Lake Superior

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Here I am ..

Camping a night at the 'Two Harbors Campground'

Finally .. Duluth to Two Harbors

I planned to leave on Friday but the end of Thursday marine forecast called for 3 to 5 foot waves on Friday. They updated to much better but I'd already decided to wait until today..Saturday. It started out with a north wind which was nice as it cooled things down. It was light. Things calmed and it was hot. I stopped for lunch at Stony Point. The only out of boat break today. I shouldn't have taken 8 days off as I lost some of the training effects off paddling since May 9th. I maybe started out too fast? It was kind of a trudge from Stony Point to Burlington Bay campground. I left at 8:20 and got to the campground at 3:10. I got an RV site for the price of a tent site. Someone from Grand Marais was working the campground office and gave me the deal as it was the closest open site to the beach. I then walked to the Holiday Store for a cold drink of some kind and ran into my 2 cousins Chris and Sara from Minneapolis who I rarely see. We sat and talked a half hour or so.
I'm planning to camp at the free water trail sit next to the Silver Bay taconite plant. This site was $24 and I'll likely camp at Temperance and Grand Marais for a similar amount...
It was hard to set out from the comforts of my house but might as well complete the 'circumnavigation'. Plus my vehicle is up there. I'll be done in 4 or more likely 5 more days!

Duluth

The Lester River .. The Lakewood Station .. McQuade Safe Harbor

Stony Point ahead... Closer

Forgot to photograph Knife River... This is approaching Two Harbors and the breakwater light.. Similar to Grand Marais'

The Two Harbors Lighthouse

Burlington Bay Campground

My site #5 .. My kayak .. My site

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Heading up final Minnesota's portion July 20th

I've decided July 20th will be when I head up the final part of Lake Superior's shore.. Minnesota. Unless the marine forecast is bogus for the day I'll set out up Minnesota's coast from my house on Park Point to Grand Portage, Minnesota where I began circumnavigating 'The Lake' with Dave, Amy and Dan on May 9th. If I'm not wind bound I anticipate it will take 5 days.

A : See Details(Google Map)

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Home but not finished

I'm back to my house in Duluth. I've some paperwork to deal with and rest.. Then I guess I'll finish the whole circumnavigation thing...

A : See Details(Google Map)

Homeward bound

It was nice that my stealth camp was not disturbed. I launched about 7:30 am with a bit over 20 miles to reach my home on Park Point in Duluth. It is not the end of my circumnavigation of Superior but I admit...I wish it was : )
I'm not sure how long I'll hang here before continuing on the final 145 miles or so to Grand Portage. Probably a week? I have some paperwork to take care for one thing. A week will have my overuse injuries feeling better but I'm sure they'll be back to where I'm at now after the first day. I could finish in 5 days or it might take a week if I'm windbound much. Well, here's the photos from my last day...for now. Forecast was light south but it was updated to SW 10 to 15 beginning mid morning so it was calm for most but there was that wind again the final couple of hours. It took me 5.5 hours with no stops since I took the direct route not following shore...adjusting as I recognized landmarks.. The light at the Wisconsin Entrance was identified from quite a distance. It seemed to take forever to finally reach it.

Nice calm morning .. As had been the case for the southshore...the sun was at my back each morning

...finally Wisconsin Entrance

It was still an hour once I was at the Wisconsin Entrance .. So good to see the familiar beach in front of my house !

Felt good to sit on my boat with feet in the cool water! A relief....now just hauling 3 loads plus my boat up to the house... : )

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Almost home

What a day.. I'll blog on that from home.. Need to sleep now.
Here's where I am!

A : See Details(Google Map)

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.