This don't look like sea kayaking to me

Sorry about the time between posts. I'm on vacation. Between paddling, bonding with friends, and happy-houring, there is little time left in the day for blogging. Plus I forgot both the computer power cable and download cord for the Nikon. This means crappy iPhone photos and short posts to conserve power but bear with me. We took one of the more interesting paddles that we've ever had near Superior yesterday. About a half mile of the paddle was up a 30' wide creek with our kayaks tied around our waists.

We had a couple great paddles by Grand Island in the past couple days and decided to do something different. We headed into the Beaver Lake wilderness and launched in Little Beaver lake and paddled the channel over to Beaver lake. On the north side of this clear lake, in the predictably named Beaver Lake wilderness area, there is a outflow creek which meanders about a half mile down to Lake Superior. Our flotilla of five picked our way down the creek, mostly paddling, until we hit the hiker bridge for the North Country trail. Just past that was a large log jam that required a 100 yard portage and then we were at the lake. We had a north blow that started the evening before and the surf was pounding for as far as we could see in both directions. The plan had been to head up to Spray Falls since this was by far the closest although not easiest access to it. It was decided however, that we were there to have fun and punching through the surf, taking beam seas for two miles, and then surf landing would only be fun for a couple of us. So we had lunch, played in the surf, and dragged our boats back up the creek.

It was the most interesting day of 'sea kayaking' in quite some time. There are those who think those long skinny boats don't work that well in moving, narrow waterways but we did just fine. The main thing was that we all had fun, which is what vacation is all about when you get right down to it. We had the pleasure of running into a couple of notable coaches on the water Monday and hope to connect for happy hour this evening before we head up to Grand Marais. (Closed circuit to Silbs and JB: Paddle west and look for the boats and beer drinkers on shore around 5pm).

More from Grand Marais in the next couple.