Troop 449 - Sea Kayaking High Adventure Trip - Summer 2006
August 24th-27th 2006
By:
by Phillip H.
On Thurs. Aug. 24, seven adults and 13 scouts departed from AUMC at 3:00 p.m. The rain kept coming down the whole way through Wisconsin. The motel we stayed at in Washburn covered pizza for the group and we think they lost out on that deal.
On Fri. morning we got up early to make it to the Living Adventures outfitters by 9:00 am. We got all our gear at their place in Bayfield. Then we drove to our launch point at Sand Bay. They showed us the strokes and then we went out in the kayaks for training. We had to tip the kayaks into the cold morning water. The waves were “.5 Philips” high. Then we went back in and ate a lunch of peanut butter and jelly and trail mix that the guides provided. The tents had to be taken out of the bags to fit in the kayaks and the gear weight was distributed between kayaks. The three guides all had singles and the rest of us were in doubles kayaks except for three people who got singles. We kayaked for 4 miles to Sand Island. There we set up camp and ate a spaghetti dinner.
On Sat. morning we woke up to fog. We kayaked slowly along the shore and went into cool sea caves on our way to the lighthouse on the north point of Sand Island. Then we went ashore and got a tour of the lighthouse from a guy stationed there. We set off to York Island to have a cheese and sausage pita bread lunch with fruit. Then we had to decide where we were going to camp that night. The choices were to camp on the west side of Oak Island or kayak to the south end which would result in an easier day of kayaking on Sunday. We decided to kayak the extra distance. It was windy and we headed straight for Raspberry Island to try to get a break from the wind. The paddling was tough. At Raspberry, we took a rest break and had a snack. When we left from Raspberry Island, we kayaked in another straight line for the shore of Oak Island. Then we kayaked around the shoreline to our group campsite at the south end. We logged at least 16 miles of kayaking that day and we were tired! Good thing the outfitter’s made the burritos. Everyone slept well that night.
On Sun., we awoke to a bright, sunny day. We packed up and everyone got in the water for a group picture. We saw several shipwrecks right below us along the way. Everyone was having fun splashing each other. We covered about 6 miles and went ashore at Red Cliff Point. We cleaned everything and packed the tents back in their original bags. After lunch, we departed back to the Twin Cities at 3:00 p.m. All the boys hoped that they could do the same trip or even a longer one sometime soon.
