The Apostle Islands are a group (or archipelago) of 22 islands on Lake Superior, just offshore from Bayfield, Wisconsin, and about 90 miles east of Duluth. I was about to begin a 4 day/3 night camping/kayaking trip, paddling from island to island. My brother and nephew had been up in the Apostles in June with their boy scout troop, and it sounded quite wonderful. My brother recommended the outfitter (Living Adventure), and I signed up for a trip shortly after they returned. I had looked for a 4 day trip over the a full moon in August, which just happened to coincide with Living Adventure's women only "Archipelago" trip. Fortunately, I qualified.
On the morning the trip started, I was excited and a bit apprehensive. I had been preparing for the trip for the last two months. Reading about the lake, the geology, the history. Building up my paddling. Tracing a map of the islands without the names to learn them. And yet ... I had been avoiding camping for a couple decades. How was that going to go? Would my 54 year old body that spent 5 days a week sitting at a desk hold up physically? Had I trained enough? Would that minor elbow pain get worse? What would the weather be like?
But the first day was gorgeous, and was an auspicious start to what turned out to be a truly magical trip.
We gathered at the Living Adventure facility just north of Bayfield at 8:30 on Thursday morning. There was Hovas, our guide. Mother and daughter Melissa and Becca. Friends Julie and Jodi. Sally from Milwaukee, and me. We collected our wet suits, life jackets and dry bags, packed our gear, and then headed out onto the water to practice our wet exits. After that we had lunch, and then we were off. The seven of us would be on our own for the next 4 days in two tandems and 3 single kayaks. We planned to spend the first night on Oak Island, the second on Rocky, and the third on Sand.
The first day's paddle was rough and mostly into the wind. I remembered how tired I had felt the first time I had been out kayaking this year, and was grateful that I wasn't tackling this paddle 3 months earlier.
We headed north along the coast of the mainland, into the wind and waves, ducking behind a dock to rest for a bit, and then later on making a landing on a beach for another short break. This was our roughest landing and launching of the trip, with an on-shore wind, and we picked up quite a bit of water just getting our spray skirts on and getting off the beach.
We paddled by the wreck of the Fedora, a 282 foot long wooden steam freighter that went down in 1901 after a kerosene lamp tipped over in its engine room. The entire engine room was soon engulfed in flames, while the ship continued to run at full throttle. With few choices, the captain headed the ship to shore and ran it aground. We could see the outline of the ship under the waves and a few places where it broke the surface.
At the closest point to Oak Island, we left the mainland and headed out into the lake. The north wind finally eased off when we got into the lee of the island, and we paddled up the west shore to Campsite 2 by the dock. We learned the drill of carrying our kayaks up, unloading them and securing them for the night, then carrying all the gear to our campsite.
Our splendid guide soon had a fire going and baked whitefish under way, and we had a lovely dinner of fish tacos. The pesto tortillas, in what would become a standing joke, would be with us for several more meals. In fact, I think the wraps we had for lunch were pesto tortillas.
We went to sleep listening to the waves slosh and gurgle against the rocks just below our campsite. The next morning was another beautiful day, this time with little wind, and we stretched on the dock and picked thimble berries before heading off to Rocky via Otter.
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