This entry is part of my write-up of a September 2024 trip to The Apostle Islands. The story begins here.
Saturday 9/7
Repositioning days are always tiring. You have to break camp, load the kayaks, paddle to a new locations, then unload and set up camp all over again. We got an early start - by this time we recognized that the morning was the calmest time on the lake. York Island, our second campsite, was fairly close to Little Sand Bay, where we had launched, and so our route involved retracing our steps, albeit under much calmer conditions, including lunch at the same Raspberry Island beach where we had stopped for a much-needed break on the way out.
We did deviate a little bit from the direct route to explore a sea cave at Oak Island. Oak is a large, centrally located island with a number of campsites, and would have been a good spot for us to have camped - except it's been closed all season due to "ongoing bear activity", so while we could look at the cave, we weren't interested in landing there. Any information you read about The Apostle Islands warns you about the high black bear population in the islands, and Oak Island in particular is said to have the among the highest density populations of bears in North America. For better or for worse, we didn't see any bears during our visit, but our Manitou Island campsite was right between the two islands - Oak and Stockon - with the highest bear populations, and bears are strong swimmers, so we took extra precautions. In addition to being very careful with food storage, we all carried whistles in camp to alert each other of any critter incursion, as well as to shoo away the bears if needed (black bears are generally timid aroudn humans unless threatened). When we launched I had asked Ranger Angel what the bear problem was with Oak Island, to which she replied, "we don't have a bear problem; we have a people problem." Apparently, early in the season campers had been sloppy and had stored food in their kayaks, teaching the bears that kayaks are things which contain yummy food - and they have to give the bears some time to get back to normal before it's safe to bring kayaks there.
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| Oak Island Sea Cave |
We had never seen a sea cave before and so we found the Oak Island cave to be pretty cool. Big enough that you could paddle into it with room to turn around, and great, gran echoing sound as the waves crashed in the cave. Little did we know that this was tiny, a mere amuse bouche compared with the caves we were going to see in days to come.
It was Saturday and the weather was good, and so the Islands were more crowded. The beach at Raspberry Island, which we had had to ourselves when we had stopped there on Thursday, already contained several other groups of kayakers. There was a group of four young women in double kayaks accompanied by a guide. As a joke I said that we should invite them to join us at York Island, where we were had campsite 1 reserved. We did exchange a few words with them, and learned that in fact they were headed for York campsite 2! Alas, no island hijinks occurred, though later in the afternoon we watched in amusement as they attempted rescue practice. in the bay at York Island.
The rest of the trip to York was uneventful. Needless to say the lake kicked up a little as the day went on, but nothing really troublesome. York Island is shaped like a giant apostrophe, with the concave side creating a pleasant bay facing north. We rounded into the bay and had a little trouble finding our campsite because, as previously noted, they're not marked in any way which is visible from the water. Fortunately, Site 3 was already occupied by a guy named Mike, out for a trip with his daughter, and he steered us to Site 1 (actually, in doing so he realized that he had accidentally landed at Site 2 - I told you they aren't well marked - and set to relocating to Site 3).
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| Campsite 1 on York Island |
The York Island campsites for whatever reason do not have picnic tables, but there was some split log seating which we were able to use as a low table, plus our site had a bear locker for food storage - have I mentioned how awesome bear lockers are compared with hanging bear bags? Plus, York Island has hands down the best outhouse I've ever seen at a campsite. Large and, um, commodious, and was supplied with toilet paper (one ding: the hand sanitized dispenser was empty). It even came with a little broom and was so clean (despite being right on the beach - it also offered a view if you propped the door open) that I felt compelled to sweep out any sand I tracked in every time I visited. The only downside is that there was the one privy was shared among the three campsites. This caused a little bit of a traffic jam when there were eleven of us on the island Saturday night, but once the other groups left on Sunday it was no longer an issue. Quite a pleasant change from the "Stump toilet" (basically a box with a toilet seat on it - an outhouse without the house part) on Manitou, and way, way better than "leave no trace" camping. York, being closer to the mainland, also had better cell reception. I reliably got one bar of LTE connectivity on my phone, which helped with my weather forecasting duties, as well as staying in touch with the home front.
Dinner was my quick cook dehydrated vegetarian quinoa black bean chili, with a gourmet appetizer of sweet potato Pringles, and home-baked chocolate chip cookies (thank you, Valerie!) for dessert.
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| Trust me, this is way better than the typical campsite commode |
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| Staying safe from bears in the bear locker |
Sunday 9/8
As expected, Sunday brought another Small Craft Advisory, and so we decided to stay ashore (I really enjoyed how Thursday's adventure had converted even the most daring among our group to my cautious outlook!). Tall Tom and Rob hung out in camp while Béla and I bushwhacked our way to the other end of the island so we could get a look at the route to the Sand Island sea caves, our next day's destination. This turned out to be a really nice hike, particularly on the way back when we stuck as much as we could to the rock crags along the island's shoreline, which offered great views and sound in addition to being an easier place to hike than pushing our way through the interior scrub.
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| Which way next, Béla? |
We ran into some kayakers who were taking a break on the York beach, who confirmed that it was pretty rough out - four foot waves, by their estimation. We were glad we had made the choice to stay ashore that day.
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| The beach at York Island |
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| Relaxing in camp |
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| York Island scenery (from our hike) |
One more thing - one night as we were sitting on the beach we saw a Great Lakes cruise ship pass by, which I recognized as one of the Ponant ships, since V and I had looked into Great Lakes cruises. We got a kick out of the fact that these people were paying a pretty penny to be looking at Great Lakes scenery - which in this case was us. Since we had some connectivity, I looked up the ship's Bayfield port call activities, which included strolling the quaint town (check!), catching a meal at a lakefront restaurant (check!), and for a mere $300 extra, kayaking (check!). We did all their activities except for the native Ojibwe dance performance, for $9,000 below their price! But I bet their beds were comfier.
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| Looking at the cruise ship looking at us |
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| Bonus photo: Rob, Tall Tom, and Béla on the water |
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