Persistent Northwest Wind
Okay, enough of the phone pic posts for a while. I promised photos from our exciting island expotition yesterday, so here they are. And it was exciting, at least for the folks who supervised from the beach and were ready to call the Coast Guard. I guess it was pretty exciting for us too. Thank you VERY MUCH Jan and Pete for standing at the ready with your motorboat in case we needed it!
Radical Betty expressed a desire to explore the island this weekend and after getting rained or winded out multiple times, the severe storms of yesterday morning cleared and the wind calmed and off we went. The major mission involved taking a look at the remains of the old stone lighthouse that used to be out there and it was a rousing success after braving a climb up a steep and slippery slope and a trek through guano-covered raspberry bushes.
I have kayaked around the island a bunch of times in the last few years but I haven’t really walked on the island since about the dark ages. Back then, there was actually a path from the landing to the lighthouse and at least one of the walls of the structure still stood. The structure was visible from the Doelle end of the beach until one day when Radical Betty was walking down there and realized it was gone. Fallen down.
Seagulls have always roosted (is that the right word?) on the island but back in the early 80s or so, cormorants started taking it over. Their guano destroyed a lot of the trees, as you will see if you click through the slideshow.
While we were out there, the wind came up and it was a fast ride in to shore and a bit of a squirrely ride for me in my little Walden Vista. It’s a great little boat but it is not really made for whitecapped waves on Gitchee Gumee. Even the little whitecaps we had yesterday. It was okay but a rudder would’ve been handy. But we made it and then swam, to wash off the guano. Oh, and I got in trouble because I did not have my [$600!] phone out there with me so that I could be contacted with the news that the wind had come up. Which I already knew. Go figger. Anyway, The Commander is supposedly making a breakfast, so I think I will end this clunky little description of our island trip. Maybe I’ll tweak it later. Or maybe not. Anyway, you can click here or on the pic for more photooooooos.
Updated to add that, in addition to Mouse’s frog stow away passenger, she had a real live toad in her kayak. We considered liberating him when we got *to* the island but decided he’d be happier at the beach, so we took him *back* too.
August 24th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Y’know, not having had much time @ cabin, the time I have been there was mostly non-kayak-able weather (too many whitecaps or too chilly to risk a dunking). That makes since 2005 since I’d last kayaked, if I have it right. 2005 – we got out for our “birthday ceremony”; 2006 – desire to do anything didn’t exist; 2007 – felt too fat to put on a swimsuit; 2008 – way too fat, but now own suit that fits (I think), but weather didn’t cooperate with the time I had. Yet.
Love the pix! Hopefully, Froggy didn’t rock the boat too much!! (He must’ve conjured the whitecaps??)
August 24th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Sheesh, Dogmomster! I am *always* too fat to put on a blasted swimsuit! That’s why I wear them for 10 years or whatever. And the weather has been particularly uncooperative this year. It *barely* cooperated with us yesterday.
August 24th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Whew! I was *hoping* it wasn’t my imagination that the weather was behaving badly this summer….I was really-truly looking forward to trying to get out kayaking this summer and am heart-broken that it may not be in the stars for this year. *sigh*
Maybe I can dust off my XC skiis this winter….keeping fingers crossed that the weather cooperates for that and provides a few ski-able weekends *hope-hope-hope* 😎
July 2nd, 2010 at 9:02 pm
[…] what she’s getting up to these days… Anyway, you can read about that little fiasco here if you want. You’ll read about a very steep dirt/gravel slope up from the boat launch. The […]