Sunday morning I watched the sky lighten from my tent and the sun rise. We got up early to break camp, and in the sand we saw the tracks of deer that had come down to the water during the night. Fortunately, though, no bear tracks.
Our morning plan was to paddle to Sand, see the sea caves, and then land on Justice Bay and have breakfast. We headed off, once again into a wind, once again getting bounced around a bit by the waves until we got into Sand's wind shadow.
A geologist is probably going to cringe at what I'm about to write, but here goes. The Apostles are made up of and shaped by 3 different forces. Sand and gravel laid down by ancient rivers a billion years ago has turned into sandstone. The glaciers that last receded 10,000 years ago carved the northern part of the continent over millennia and left behind the glacial till that makes up most of the surface of the islands, including the hills and bluffs. And the waves and ice and wind and rain and plants continually carve and erode and collapse and construct what remains.
A billion years ago, when the sandstone was laid down, life on earth did not include land plants.
There are a few places in the Apostles where the sandstone emerges and can be found on the surface. Where the sandstone lies at the edge of an island (most spectacularly on Sand, Devils, and a stretch of mainland), sea caves have formed as the waves and ice cut into that ancient rock, and many of the caves are large enough to paddle through. Having read about these caves before the trip, I was really looking forward to seeing them. I wanted to paddle through them and listen to the sound of the waves gurgling and slapping and echoing against the walls and rocks. To look out into the bright sunlight, surrounded by rock that had once been sand deposited on a river bottom a billion years ago. To look up at ripple marks on the ceilings that captured a moment of time on a long gone river. To wonder at the patterns of light and dark rock laid down by those rivers.
A bit of luck is required to get a close look at the caves, as you don't want to be in them with an onshore wind, but we were in the lee of the island, and I was delighted that we had the chance to see them.
After paddling through the caves, we headed around the corner to Justice Bay, landed, and had breakfast. The coffee was welcome, to say nothing of the world's most stick-to-your-ribs helping of oatmeal. We hiked to the Sand Island light house, walking through woods of silver birch, cyprus, and other trees. Along the way, we saw a couple of bald eagles soaring off the northern point of the island.
After returning to our kayaks, we launched to cross to Little Sand Bay back on the mainland. This time the wind was blowing across our beam, creating a different rhythm to paddle in than the headwinds we had previously faced. It picked up as we left Sand's wind shadow, and once again we got tossed around a bit more than one is used to paddling on Lake Calhoun, but the previous 3 days had sharpened our skills, and we were comfortable and confident in the waves.
We landed on the mainland, cleaned out our kayaks, and carried the boats and our gear up to the parking lot. Our guide had a conversation with a couple of folks who wanted to take their recreational sit on top kayaks out to "Sandy Island". She convinced them that this would be a really bad idea in the rough water, and persuaded them to head to the eastern side of the Bayfield peninsula, which was sheltered from the day's winds.
The Living Adventure trailer pulled up, and we and our boats and gear returned to our starting point. We unpacked, showered at the Rec Center in Bayfield, and re-grouped at Maggie's Restaurant for lunch. And then it was time to split up and head home.
Driving back to Minneapolis, missing the group I had bonded with for the last 4 days, I found the details and demands of my "normal" life slowly popping up and re-asserting their claims on my attention. Where a few days ago I could lose myself in the wonder of a bay on Rocky Island, I now found myself juggling what I had to deal with the next day and what could be postponed. Where I had been able to simply watch an eagle fly, or listen to a loon, or watch the waves as my kayak climbed over and through them, or revel in the joy of having been able to paddle for 4 days with ease, now I was remembering details I had left behind and putting them back into place.
But the Apostles will be there when I return. In the meantime, I've added the beaches on Rocky and York, the dock on Oak, and the sea caves on Sand to the places I take out and hold in my memory. I wonder if anyone is doing a night paddle in the Apostles tonight, and what direction the wind is coming from. I remember the lighthouses flashing in the dark, and I imagine the sun coming up on another group's kayaks. I wonder what the sea caves look like in winter, and what the bears and the eagles and the loons do when the people are gone. There are special places all over the world, but this one has touched my heart, and I will return.
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