Apostle Islands: Sea Caves and Home

This entry is part of my write-up of a September 2024 trip to The Apostle Islands. The story begins here.

Monday 9/9

Monday's conditions were benign and so we headed out to see the Sand Island Sea caves. First, we made the roughly three mile crossing to see the historic Sand Island lighthouse, built  in 1881. From there we paddled down the island's coast, and WOWZA! Whatever we had been expecting, the sea caves exceeded it. The Apostles are sandstone islands, and over the millennia the water has etched out beautiful caves into the islands' shorelines. The caves on Sand Island aren't super tall, but they're deep and form a maze of twisty passages, each unique, that you can explore by kayak. Some of the passages are big enough to paddle all the way through: go in one spot and come out another. And the sound of the water in the caves is great too. It's all super cool. We all had giant grins plastered on our faces the whole time we were there. We spent a lot of time there, and we took many, many pictures - some of which are included below. Pictures are better than trying to describe it. We were even lucky enough that another paddler happened by, and he took a group shot of us. 

When we finally pulled ourselves away from the beauty of the caves we paddled down the island to the dock / campsite area, where we took a lunch break. Then we paddled back to camp.

When we got back, we faced a decision. We were due to spend two more nights at York Island, but we had pretty much fully paddled the immediate area - we had come to York Island from the east, we had explored west in our visit to Sand Island, going south would take us back to the launch, and to our north was just the big, open lake. Plus, we enjoyed the sea caves so much and wanted to see more, with the hitch being that the other two big sea cave sites - Devil's Island, and Meyers Beach on the mainland, weren't within reasonable paddling distance of our campsite. So we made the momentous decision - never done before on one of our trips - to return from camping one day early so we could see the Meyers Beach caves. The plan was to break camp Tuesday morning, paddle back to Little Sand Bay, load all the gear into the cars, drive to Meyers Beach, launch there and paddle to the nearby sea caves, paddle back, reload the cars, then, because we figured we'd be too lazy to make camp again, stay in a hotel and head for home first thing Wednesday. Sounds relaxing, right?

I should mention that this change of plans also helped with one of our trip constraints: both Béla and Rob and  needed to be home for commitments back home Friday night/Saturday morning, and staying ashore Tuesday night would give them a little more travel buffer by allowing them an earlier start for home on Wednesday.

Monday's dinner was my Middle Eastern Chicken. I like the idea of this dish, but having made it on two trips I've decided that I don't really like the seasoning - it's going to take some adjustments to the recipe before I bring this dish again.

The "money shot"

More Sand Island Sea Cave photos:

Sand Island lighthouse

Tuesday 9/10

On Tuesday our goal was - MORE SEA CAVES! We said goodbye to the islands, broke camp, and paddled back to Little Sand Bay. Once back we started loading all our gear and kayaks, with a plan to eat lunch at the nice picnic tables at Little Sand Bay and then head to the Meyers Beach launch. All of a sudden Tom realized he couldn't find his phone and came to the conclusion that he must have left it on the driftwood log he had been sitting on back at the island while he was waiting for the rest of us to finish packing our boats (Tom is a fast packer!). I understand the kind of frustration and anger you can experience when you make a mistake like that, and after a moment of indecision (Was it worth it going back? But there were some great pictures on the phone!), with a combination of adrenaline borne of frustration and basic tall person strength, Tom hoisted his kayak back off the roof of my car like it was a toy and headed back down to the beach to paddle back to York Island, which would take about an hour each way. And I heard him exclaim, ere he went out of sight, "You guys go on to Meyers Beach, we'll meet up tonight!"

Tall Tom heads off to recover his phone - or so he thinks

By the time Rob and Béla finished loading their boats and we had eaten lunch, about 45 minutes had passed since Tom's launch and the three of us resolved that we'd just wait around for him to return and then all go to Meyers Beach together, even though that would mean a later launch. Suddenly, long before we expected him to be back, we saw Tom walking towards us, smiling. He said that while paddling he had had time to think, and realized partway to the island that his phone had been in the pocket of his PFD all along. Crisis and complications averted!

After that excitement we hopped into the cars and drove the 20 minutes or so to Meyers Beach, a popular launch and park since it offers a nice beach and easy paddling access to sea caves - it's only about one mile from the launch to the caves. However, the place does include one unexpected barrier, in that the parking lot sits on a bluff well above the lake, so you have to carry your kayak down a long flight of stairs to get to the launch beach. Forty seven stairs, for those counting (who counts stairs?!). Admittedly, the risers were shallower than a regular flight of steps, so we carried our kayaks "only" up and down the equivalent of maybe three stories. Trust me, it was a workout, which required our group of four old men to rest for a bit after both the down and up trips. 

The Meyers Beach sea caves were every bit as spectacular as Sand Island, but had somewhat different characteristics. They were grander in scale, featuring very tall caverns; however, there weren't as many passages to paddle through. In addition, conditions were a little rougher than when we had visited Sand Island and so we were more hesitant to poke into the caves for fear of being caught by big waves while inside. The waves did, though, create really cool and thunderous sound. 

Stairs down to the Meyers Beach launch

Meyers Beach sea caves

Splashy on the way back

On the way back the water conditions picked up, as we by then knew they would given the time of day. Again, nothing challenging or dangerous, but I for one was ready to be done with wind and waves! By the time we left Meyers Beach our day had included two paddling trips, breaking camp, and loading and unloading the boats several times, and so we were all too tired to spend any significant time behind the wheel. Instead, we figured we'd have dinner and get a hotel in the nearby town of Ashland (large enough to have a bunch of chain hotels) and get an early start for home on Wednesday. We had a delicious dinner at a restaurant overlooking the lake, where we feasted on Wisconsin's own cheese curds and more whitefish (fried this time). We split two appetizers, cheese curds and pretzel bites, and wound up dipping the cheese curds in the jalapeno cheese sauce which had come with the pretzels. My cardiovascular health surely took a hit from fried cheese dipped in cheese, but after a week of camping, the indulgence was delicious!

Cheese curds!

Strangely, Ashland's hotels were all fully booked, so we wound up staying further up the road in Ironwood, where I discovered something that was new to this east coast city boy - apparently in the Upper Mid-West people go out cruising for multi-day excursion in their ATV/UTV vehicles. One hotel we stayed in had a bin of complimentary shop towels for guests to use in cleaning off their motorcycles or ATVs so guests wouldn't use the towels from their rooms for such dirty tasks, while in Ironwood some Mad Max lookin' vehicles parked next to ours in the parking lot. 

I'll also mention that the night we stayed in Ironwood was the night of the Presidential debate. I watched it with Rob and Béla in their room. Béla, a proud Hungarian, nearly hit the ceiling when Mr. Trump cited Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán as a character witness. Tom wisely ignored the whole debate thing. Here's a musical remix of a debate highlight for those who missed it. 

UTV's parked next to us at the hotel

Wednesday 9/11 and Thursday 9/12

There's not too much to write about the trip home, as Tom and I basically hoofed it home as fast as we could. We took a different route home - south through Wisconsin then east by Chicago, while Rob and Béla went back the way we had come via the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Tom and I spent the night near Toledo, where we had dinner at a cool local bar/pizza place/live music venue in Maumee called The Village Idiot. Think JV's, but larger and maybe marginally more hip. Food took forever to arrive, but the pizza was great and the drinks were dirt cheap. Smooth sailing all the way, except that just a few hours from home we got stuck on the highway for an hour and a half due to an accident which closed the whole highway at the Allegheny Tunnel. But we made it home safe and sound.

The Village Idiot (looks bigger in the panoramic photo than in reality)

Foggy, pretty morning on the Interstate

Remains of the wreck which closed the Allegheny tunnel

All in all, another extremely successful trip. Beautiful scenery, great paddling, no one died (almost doesn't count). More total days than usual, but fewer days camping and fewer days paddling - but still a great trip! While I do a lot of the research and legwork in advance of our trips, I usually feel like a lightweight in terms of group gear contributions during the trip itself. Rob and Tom bring water filtration, a complete kitchen, shower, clotheslines, etc., while I bring just my sunny disposition. Thus, I was thrilled on this trip to have been able to have provided the solutions to a couple of gear challenges. Béla forgot to bring his spray skirt, and paddling without one would have been a total non-starter in Great Lakes conditions. Fortunately, I had packed an extra so I was able to lend him one. Likewise, Rob found himself without a headlamp since he had brought the wrong batteries, and I was able to help him out because I had packed an extra.

Not too many campcraft notes from this trip:

• I'd like to make myself a little doormat for in front of my tent - I'm tired of kneeling down in the dirt/sand/mud when getting in and out of the tent. I might get a second inflatable pillow to use instead of a drybag under my knees. 
• While my continuing old-iPhone-as-GPS experiment was more successful this year than last, it still needs fine-tuning. For one thing, it's difficult to see the screen out on the water. I think I'll experiment with a different case, and maybe wearing it on a cord around my neck rather than keeping it out under the deck bungies. I should have tested it more extensively before the trip. 
• My ultra-packable but therefore very thin tent continues to degrade - the mesh is starting to give way, and I've patched a number of holes in the fabric. I think it's good for another trip or two. 
• Tall Tom's new Jetboil Basecamp stove is awesome! Works even when wet! 
• Oh, and I have to mention the King of Chairs. After last year's I spent considerable space in my write-up grousing about Tall Tom and Rob's fancy big chairs and how I was like the little kid with my small camping chair. Well this year I showed up with a bigger, better chair than any of them! Arms! Cupholder! Storage pocket! Thank you, Amazon!