Day Two: Bete Gris to Brunette Park

The beginning of day two was the hardest;  We parted from Erika and Steve in the morning, and Evan already had his kayak down at the Bete Gris beach.  Why, is another long story, saved for when you ask for it.

So Terry and I were on our own starting out from Gina's house with the dicey landing/launching spot, not a beach really, just a cut in the bluff.  The wind was substantial from the west, the way we were headed, and we wanted to stay fairly close to the shore which was all cliff face at this point, so that meant that the waves were all messed up, coming at us from everywhere and big.  I was getting great facefuls of water and couldn't stop paddling to complain.  So we just put our heads down and soldiered on, cause we could see sunny Bete Gris beach ahead of us.  

Oh how sweet it was to finally push up on that beach and run to the outhouse there.  We were in the lea of the land and the sea was smooth and clear and all was well.  We found Evan who said we could go ahead while he dried out some things and worked on his tan.  So on around that lovely bay we paddled, so thankful that this land has been preserved for the public, this being the Bete Gris Preserve which extends down to Oliver Bay and includes the precious wetlands behind the beach.   KLT was one of the partners who contributed to this work, and Gina Nicholas was the person who spearheaded the effort.

We made a stop for lunch at Dr. Doug McKenzie's summer cottage.  He wasn't home but he had given us permission to use his internet connection so that I could work on this blog.  Doug and Lisa are major donors to the CIKC!!  Yeay!! 

Here I am working on my blog on my mini ipad.  I didn't change anything on the puzzle, Doug and Lisa, honest.

Here's a picture of their house.

We knew conditions would change when we rounded Point Isabel, so it's not as though we weren't prepared, but the next seven miles were hard work into another headwind.  

But the sun was out and we enjoyed the sandstone bluffs (see above, at Point Isabel) that can't be seen from the road.  

We picked blueberries and billberries every time we took a break--what an island we live on, eh?

Brunette Park at last!  There is a Keweenaw Water Trail http://kwta.org/ camping spot there and we set up camp, hung out our wet stuff, made supper--Evan made supper, actually.  Seems he wanted to use up his heavy canned beans and didn't particularly like the idea of our instant pea soup.  He said it would only take ten minutes, but a half hour later, I had already pretty much demolished all our sesame stix  and cheese snacks and was getting a little tipsy on wine while waiting.  All right, to his credit, he threw in some really special franks and supper was delicious.  

We turned in, exhausted.