Tagged!

I was 'tagged' the other day by Nan. Once I figured out what being 'tagged' entailed, I thought it sounded kind of fun. The deal is to go into your photo archive, pick the 4th folder in the archive, select the 4th picture in the folder, and write about it. A person then needs to tag 4 other people to do the same. That is the easy part so SonErik, Silbs, Bonnie, and Derrick....good luck. I await your posts like a kid on Christmas morning.

By sheer astounding coincidence, my image was captured only a couple nautical miles from where Nan's was. Her story of planning a conference featuring some hands on work out in the Apostle Islands reminds us once again, like it says at the top of this blog, the Lake is the Boss. On the day I took the above shot, the lake was as flat as a pancake, even though we had hurridley left Outer Island at 7am after the weather service had predicted 25 knot northwest winds with waves 3'-5'. I despise 7am when I'm on vacation, especially the 4th of July weekend vacation. We had paddled from Outer to Manitou Island via Cat and Otter Island, a distance of about 14 miles. It was hotter than hell and the alcohol supply was depleted to the point of strict rationing. Our early departure got us the campsite on Manitou before noon so we set up camp and took a leisurely paddle down to the historic fish camp to look around. On the way back I paddled out to the pile of rubble that has a navigation light on it (RangerBob assures me this was a real island at one point and has the historic photos to prove it) to check out the gull and cormorant colonies. After a careful approach from well upwind, I took some pictures and paddled back to Manitou to catch the rest of the crew. When I got near shore, Mama Merganser and her offspring decided I was a bit too close and 'put er into overdrive' to get past me. The little ones couldn't fly yet and I snapped a few shots with the telephoto as I drifted. About a half mile up the shore I noticed that everyone had beat me back to camp but no one was landing on the beach. I soon figured out why. Our old buddy, Mr Black Bear, the guy that backed Ms Freeman into an outhouse and closed the island for most of last camping season, was ambling down the shore, oblivious to the paddlers 50 yards away. I snapped a few shots of him and then headed for the shore.

Thanks for the 'tag' Nan. It made it simple for me to whip out a post without racking my brain about what to write. Since this blog is ostensibly about Lake Superior, a somewhat limited subject when its frozen over, it got things back on track as well. Finally, it brought back some great memories of a great trip and gives me hope that once again the lake will thaw out and sooner rather than later we'll be leaving Red Cliff for an island destination.