Day Three: Brunette Park--Gay--Louis Point

It rained in the night, but the sun shone on Brunette Park in the morning.

We're up, Evan's sleeping in.

Packing up at Brunette Park--it was cold that morning!

Here we are leaving Brunette early--great clouds.

We left Brunette Park with coffee and tea  in thermoses strapped on our kayak, heading to Gay.  We could see the Gay Stack tiny on the horizon and it was farther off than we thought.  So even though the sea was flat and the clouds were lovely, we didn't get to Gay until noon so we had breakfast and called it lunch.

Approaching the Gay Stack.  For those of you who aren't from around here, the Gay Stack is a massive chimney leftover from the copper mining days, I think it was a smelter.  

Gettin' closer

And here is where Evan caught up with us in Gay.

Packing up to leave the little Gay park, heading out and around the stamp sands, which are the residue from the copper smelting and which were dumped into Lake Superior in those years, leaving the coarse, hard, fine rock there for posterity. 

We thought we would be around the stamp sands in just a few minutes, but no!  The stamp sands go on and on and on!  I didn't get any pictures cause I kept thinking well, everybody's seen the stamp sands, but you don't realize how massive the deposit is until you kayak by and it just doesn't stop.  Grand Traverse Bay is big, too.  We checked out the little township park just outside of town, and when we got back in our boats, discovered that we had a trailing wind!  Oh man, was that fun!  

We made it to Louis Point in no time.  And here was a surprise.  Louis Point is a blunt, vaguely mushroom-shaped peninsula sticking out into Lake Superior and the end is a stretch of spectacular sandstone bluff.  

Evan inspecting a curvy line of red sandstone along the bluff.

Our destination was on around the point and facing Little Traverse Bay, a humble and enchanting little cottage belonging to our friend Jane Pallin's brother, and I gotta say, this photo, taken the next mornning, doesn't do it justice at all!  

The view is stunning; here you can see it behind me as I'm sipping something, wine, probably.  The trailing wind had gotten us here ahead of schedule, but not long after we arrived we were greeted by our friends Sharon Emley and Don Arkin, who spend their winters on a sailboat and wanted to hear every detail of our adventures thus far.  Then came our hosts, Jane and Dave Pallin with a delicious supper of fresh lake trout.  What a treat!  

The lake was so so calm and the reflected sunset so so lovely that I couldn't resist going for a swim.  Besides I'd started to stink.  Not sure the cold water took away the stink, but it certainly was refreshing. 

Libby Meyer arrived also to replace her husband Evan as our escort.  We said good bye to Evan and the rest and bedded down at last under clear skies and Ursa Major.