Today’s forecast:
Well, before getting to that, let’s review what I knew about sea kayaking six months ago: Almost nothing. Also my sea kayaking experience: Hardly any.
While I was dressed for immersion—drysuit, neoprene hood, neoprene gloves, bailout bag—I had no skills to speak of, except some level of good judgement. Paddling in Tobin Harbor is generally good judgement. Paddling to Merritt Lane less so, in light of this forecast:
“East winds to 5 to 15 knots becoming northeast 10 to 20 knots in the afternoon, then increasing 15 to 25 knots late. Waves building to 3 to 5 feet occasionally to 7 feet.”
National Weather Service
But never mind the forecast! I’d mostly—mostly!—be in Tobin Harbor and Merritt Lane. The only spot I had to worry about was this exposed part between Bobs Island and Porter Island:
And I could always turn aro und if anything became too intimidating. So I set off on this morning, yet another beautiful day in Isle Royale.
Tobin Harbor itself was uneventful. I took my time, mostly paddling close to the north side. The part past Bob’s Island wasn’t flat, but it was manageable, although the thunderous noise of the pounding surf beyond Red Rock Point is not my preferred Isle Royale soundtrack. It was followed by the blissful calm of Merritt Lane.
Somewhere along the way I began to wonder about spending the night at Merritt Lane. I had the contents of my bailout bag, and there is a shelter at Merritt Lane, so it would be doable. Probably not comfortable, but doable.
Upon landing, I remembered that all the signs back at Rock Harbor pointed to me spending that night at Rock Harbor: the contents of my shelter, the cockpit cover at Tobin Harbor dock. I turned on my phone, and lo and behold I had a signal. I texted my sisters, one of whom would be sure to communicate my location to the rangers.1
After dropping my drysuit and bailout bag in the shelter, I took off on an exploratory trip. Imagine the immense force it took to soften these rock edges:
That’s about as far as I went, so not all the way to Blake Point.
Although I didn’t bring anything but my bailout bag and my Kindle, at least I brought those. I briefly considered sleeping outside on a nice patch of ground between a couple of rocks, but I figured at least there would be no wandering moose inside the shelter.
I fell asleep to this:
- I imagined that it’s better to know right off where to start looking, although later my
sister said a kind of late-season malaise could be heard in the voice of the ranger she spoke to at the Houghton Visitor Center who she tasked with communicating my location to an on-site ranger. ↩︎