Waiting on Weather

Boats bask in a late nite sunset after a day of rest...


The guiding little light box that could...allow you to know the entrance to the Ontonagon River and elongated break-wall into the city...

It does not take very long to actualize reality on the big lake... You make a plan, then change it- that's what we tell folks on guiding endeavors and those words will live true throughout this excursion as well. Our first experience with said, concrete phrase hit us nilly willy in that fair town of Ontonagon after our Post Office experience, or lack their of.

So we rolled in on the 4th and did not end up leaving until sometime after that... All the days blur into one giant paddling conglomeration of miles, waves, winds and dank meals atop the whisperlite international. We paddled into town on the 7th with intention of picking up our goodies at the Post Office - GREAT SUCCESS!! After our box was locked down in our possession we skipped back to the beach to find that the NE wind, within/ beyond five nautical miles from shore on western Lake Superior had built to a blustery 20+ kts... Hard to stand, and trumped if we were going to try and paddle. Long story short, we got real acquainted with the Chamber of Commerce (thanks all three volunteers we met that day!) and got a bus ride to 1.35 miles of our hunker down location... a.k.a. Gurda Mansion (more will be revealed about that later). The boats got a night in the tall grass, we got to walk down a gravel road ridden with mosquitoes with a return trip via foot the next morning, prior to regaining our paddling momentum. Such is the life on the circumnavigation circuit...


Unlike the television waves always appear smaller on camera then when you are staring up into their beastly maw... These don't appear large and in-charge, but when those 4-sometimes 6 footers were slapping fat logs up and down the surf zone we thought it was a great day to find a bus service...


This cavernous cabin was where we called home for the few nights we were blessed with in Ontonagon. Thank you Gurda family for hooking us up in style...