After several trips of hauling gear to and fro to our boats the Hildebrandt’s dog decided to follow us over to the lake. A place that, I have been told, is ‘not for dogs’ without their owners. Luke is running about, being a yellow lab, because that is what they do. They also are very intrigued by anything that remotely resembles something to play fetch with. It’s Sunday, people are about enjoying the day and some young couple tosses a stick in the water. No big deal right? WRONG. The break wall is 15 ft above the water so when a large lab drops into the water it’s a trite hard for him to get his footing and back out of the water. I didn’t notice for a short while, but five minutes elapsed time I noticed the dog swimming in circles by the end of the break wall. “What the flipnasty basty is going on?” I had denoted in my mind. Do I take a kayak over there, do I swim, do I… well the water is cold, so immersion is out of the question. I ran over to the other side of the break wall and holler at this dog. People are around, presumably believing this is my dog and I am irresponsible for letting it plop into the lake. I have no time or tolerance to care about this notion though. I climb down to water level and holler more at the dog. He swims over, but unable to see where to get out swims away from the rocks. Rationally, I cinche up my sandals, pull my up my pants and climb into the water at thigh level so I am supported by the rocks. I call the dog again and he swims over, then away, then back, then I grab his blasted collar and pull him towards me. I crouch down and lift this K-9 er out of the water and place his paws on some solid ground, he seems obliged. Then not knowing where to go from there, he starts to meander back down to the water. Not on my watch though, so I pick him back up and hoist him to the next level of rock, eventually making it to the walkway. The walkway where a crowd has gathered, giggling and reinstituting my faith in human kind… The same human kind that threw the stick in the water in the first place, saw the dog could not get out and walked away. Anyhow our slaphappy lab buddy was then put on a towrope, a.k.a. leash and escorted back to his respective home on the other side of highway 61.Nice, so we’re outty correct? WRONG. We shuttle the boats back to the landing at the harbor and begin to load up. At this time our DNR friend returns. He lets us off with a smile today and goes out in the building seas to check people’s registration (a.k.a. play in a powerboat in waves). He’s out for all of 15 minutes and then heads back into the harbor. People get paid for this. We head out. Paddle towards the ominous bluster of D town.
Houses are constant and the waves are getting bigger. The mind peace starts to get a little knackered and the wind is pushing hard. By the time we are within a mile of the lift bridge we are in 4-6ft seas. We see one motorboat venture out and constantly monitor the banter from the lift bridge to see if any LARGE boats are coming in. We cannot see any on the horizon, but then again it’s rising and falling a four plus feet at a time. Within a half mile of the bridge it becomes apparent we’ve been blown off course. STRESS!! We fight the wind and waves to jockey back into position and get right on track to enter the burly break wall near the Duluth Lightbridge. As luck should have it there are no shortage of people on this break wall wondering what the whoo nasty, we are doing out there. COMPOSURE. We keep on fighting the good fight with the waves until a 45’ yacht comes screaming into the canal. To their credit they probably could not see us, as when the waves break they are white precisely the color of our boats. So this boat blazes us, creating more chaos in waves, and musters a bolstered ‘sorry’ as we get rebounded between their swell and that from the wall. In a matter of moments we are out of the insanity around the corner of that channel and watching a bustling Duluth do what it does… Floating amidst a real concrete jungle we took some time to gather our thoughts, emotions and theatrical outbursts. People walking by above offered congratulatory remarks or absentee thoughts of “what a ride eh?” It’s consoling to know people acknowledge your existence and commend your efforts.
It served as a reflecting point, actualization as it were, to process that this event was probably one of the more dodgy experiences on the journey. Take a constricted area, big water, rocky shoreline and what seemed like a myriad of spectators- add that to an area you can’t really make any mistakes in and ‘you’re in DULUTH’.We kicked off towards Canal Park and found a beach allow our lower extremities to regain consciousness with gravity. Walking around never felt sooooo good. We changed attire and roamed across the same lift bridge that had served as an eternity moments previous (not before watching a MONSTROUS BOAT- the American Courage venture into port).
From there we met up with friends, had a festive beverage and then planned the precise experience of parking our boats in a safe hold and spending the night on a real live futon. (Thank you friends formally from Bayfield living in Duluth) We are in the home stretch.
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