The last day

I awoke before dawn to a very windy rain pummeling my hammock. Great. Today we have to pack up to leave and I don't want everything wet. I hunkered down as best I could and catnapped until first light. The rain let up, but it was still blowin' pretty hard. I made a run to the privy and ducked under the kitchen tarp. I cranked the radio and checked on the weather. Looks like we might have a good window of opportunity before lunch to get back to the put-in. The wind conveniently dried most of our gear, so after we ate, we packed up and waved goodbye to Pine Island.

The lake was just a little wavy as we headed north, so we stopped into check out the Upper Damn. Pretty cool spot, but the water was really roarin'. We kept our distance so as to not get caught up in the swirling currents. We followed the shoreline along the northshore, but now the lake had turned. What started out as a so-so day quickly turned into a bad one. The clouds descended from the mountains and the wind began to blow down the lake from the north. The caps rose to almost four feet at some spots. As we rode the crests down, it dropped us into the trough which turned you parallel to the wave. That's were you can get rolled pretty easy. We struggled to keep our boats straight and watched each other like hawks. Making sure to button up tight, we could take quite a lot of water over our bows, but all our boats were different. Some of us were loaded heavier, too. And this is where I have to say, I love my boat. I have a Wilderness Pungo 120 with a chest high skirt. It sits wide and low in the water, but can take just about anything. The tracking is top-notch, so easily readjusted when steering. I have yet to flip it and if I was going to flip, it would have been that day, for sure. I loaded my boat and put it in my swimming pool at home to balance the load. It worked wonderfully. We worked against the elements and steadied our boats for a little over two miles to the take-out. A few times I thought I was going to get slammed up against the rocks, but played the game with the lake and the wind. At one point, we passed a man with long grey hair, sitting on his porch, directly into the wind, letting his hair blow straight out behind him! He waved, then crossed his arms back over his chest again and shook his head. I'm sure, from his camp, he's seen just about everything. We finally reached the dock, but not before we came upon a Loon pair and a chick. The father was bellowing out into the wind and the chick and Mom were floating on the other side of us. We moved as fast as we could, so as not to stress them out too badly. We pulled our boats precariously into the landing, but as soon as you slowed down, you got swamped from the stern. It was a VERY wet landing. We hauled the boats up into the grass as far away from the water as we could, while Kyle went running out onto the dock to ride out the storm. He had to hold on or he was goin' in! We dug out some snacks and watch the lake get angrier and angrier. Good thing we didn't wait to leave. Husband showed up about 1/2 hour later with big hugs for all. He turned around to look at the lake and just said "Holy cow, you were out there in THAT?!" Yes we were.