July 12, 2015 Mud Pond to Boy Scout to Thoroughfare Campsite

Last night I got a little damp but slept very well. Sometime in the middle of the night I went to the bathroom and something shifted in my hammock. I went right back to sleep. I woke up at 4AM with cold feet as they stuck out of the hole in the top of the upside down hammock.

Fortunately, I was dry. Unfortunately, no one was awake to help me out and I ripped the fly screen as I wallowed around trying to climb up and out of an upside down hammock because I desperately had to go to the bathroom. Since it was dark and I didn't want to further damage my hammock, I put on a head net and tried to sleep vertically at the picnic table. When that didn't work, I made coffee. The coffee bag broke and I got grounds in the cup. I decided to go fishing and the lure snapped off the line. I decided to go back to the campsite and count myself lucky to have seen the moon and sunrise and the lake was a mirror. Dad was already making berry pancakes. I would have suggested we leave early to cross the big bay while it was a mirror but he was already cooking.

We ate a ton of banana, strawberry, blueberry pancakes and bacon, had seconds, and then packed up camp while doing dishes while we dried tents and tarps in the sun. By the time we left, the wind picked up, and there were huge waves. We paddled over to gravel beach site and tied in all of our gear. We filtered a bunch of water while we waited for the wind and waves to die down. They didn't. My oldest son and Gramp passed rope through his ground cloth to make a sail. We pushed off in what we hoped was a lull and made progress down the shore with the wind.

The sail worked quite well and my oldest son quickly tired of holding it. He kept refining his design. While cruising along with the wind and waves, we met a couple from Washington paddling hard straight into the wind. It looked completely exhausting.

We pulled into Rocky Cove while Gramp and my oldest son literally sailed by. We pulled out to chase them. Fortunately, they pulled into the cove just beyond the cliff and we pulled into the shore and climbed up on the cliff. We could see North up the West Side of the lake and over toward the island with all the seagulls on it. We pulled out and headed South for a lunch place and I noticed a little island where I had lunch in 2006 (the GPS waypoint) but we decided to pull into Ledge Point for lunch. PBJ on English muffins and then we went for a swim. I jumped off the rocks and lost my hat.

We looked for my hat a bit and then sailed down the west shore to Boy Scout and Thoroughfare campsite. We liked Thoroughfare campsite best so we made camp there. We first set up the tarp and then the hammocks and then napped until 4:30. A fox kept pestering us at the campsite. We made a lot of noise and threw things at it. We assumed people had been feeding it. It left so we made dinner.

We fried the frozen mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, and cream corn. It was good enough that we all had seconds. After cleanup we sat by the campfire playing cards, wildlife trivia, and I sorted through gear trying to determine what could be left at the portage the next day. We freed up a crate and 2 coolers. while I wrote in the journal, the fox reappeared. This time we left it alone and it came right into camp near the fire.

It was after the giant pile of bear skat. One mouthful at a time it carried all of the bear skat away. We repaired the rips in the mosquito netting in my hammock with duct tape. Everyone went to bed at 9PM. I packed up a lot of gear in case animals came that night. I punched a bunch of estimated way points in my GPS from the map for tomorrow. We could hear the fox yipping in the distance in the middle of the night. I used a milk jug so didn't have to get up in the middle of the night.