The awkward part about sleeping in a hammock is getting out in the middle of the night because your bladder is as old as the rest of you. Opening the mosquito net and finding your footwear are all easy things when you can see. Either way, I slept like a dream. I felt amazing that morning, and leftovers for breakfast made it much nicer.
It was the best camp site we had seen so far, but we needed to move on. We headed due east, our maps telling us there was a narrow waterway we could cut through rather than going around an island. When we reached it, we discovered that it was not, in fact, a waterway. It was the shortest portage I'd seen: as soon as I stood up off the boat I could see the other side. My boat, along with Noma and Ron, simply carried our canoes the short distance and put back in. The other two boats went around.
After meeting up, we found an empty camp site, but didn't set up. We stopped for lunch while another boat continued forward to see if we could find something better. Within an hour (I wasn't really timing it), they radioed back having found the perfect spot on the southern tip of Clarke island. We gathered our things and followed them, finding that this spot actually had a beach. They called it sandy, but it was more grainy. Chunky as it were. We set up camp and settled for the day. Some of us went swimming, which changed us from smelling like the unwashed masses, to smelling like a lake. I accepted the change.
Then came the winds.
Well first came the rain. We saw the storm coming from a distance, and worried somewhat as to what direction it was going. We got a light sprinkle compared to the downpour we saw at a distance. Once that had passed, we climbed to a high point to watch the weather. That's when the winds came. We retreated to our tents, and about halfway through the noisy bluster I decided I didn't want to risk my sleeping gear and went to my hammock to retrieve them. That's when I realized it wasn't all that windy down there. The wind was rustling the tops of the trees quite heavily, but didn't bother us much down there.
The squirrels at this island were noisy. I had never heard them so loud, nor seen them so bold. Nature isn't as afraid of us out there as in the suburbs.The island also had plenty of maple varieties, and the sap showed.
Who goes camping and expects to stay clean, honestly?
After dark, Becka took me on a late night canoe ride to the middle of the lake. It was dead silent. A gentle breeze, and a nearly full moon. Yes we took pictures, but we all know that no picture has ever captured the moment. No visual that large, or that deep, can be done justice. I was mesmerized.
I fell asleep easily enough, but woke at 2am to the sound of a strong wind. I could ignore it well enough until I heard the footsteps.
You see we were spread pretty thin across the southern part of Clarke Island. I couldn't find a decent spot to set up close to the others, so I was a little ways off by myself. It wasn't difficult, just isolated. That's what makes footsteps in the middle of the night so disconcerting.
I had my flashlight, but my knife was in the tent with Becka. So I did what any other person would do in that situation and froze solid for an hour or so. It was dark enough that you couldn't see the hammock without a light, and they had no light.
"They" were either nature or my imagination. Didn't calm my nerves. I just stayed awake until it started to get light out, then felt brave enough to fumble my way out of a hammock with little visibility under the rain fly. Of course I was alone.
We broke camp and headed south. It was windy, the water was choppy until we got to the narrows, I actually worried since the waves were about the size of our boats. We made it across unscathed but not unsplashed, and made the gentle ride down until we reached the outfitter.
It felt a bit odd, seeing society. The outfitter isn't in the park itself, but the waterways are connected. This was apparent when we passed the sign identifying the boundary to the boundary waters (we saw a similar one one Seagull lake), and later rode past some private docks leading to some houses. Once we disembarked, we made the drive back connecting to Grand Marais before heading back to Bear Lake. I had never been so grateful to not be the one driving.
You ever take a shower and come out of it feeling like you need a shower? Felt like that for a few days. I finally smelled worse than my kids.
Sunday morning came and everyone packed their stuff away, and good-bye's were said. Becka was right. There's nothing like the place.
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