ISLE ROYALE: GETTING THERE

Go to: Introduction -- Pre-Trip Research

Western suburbs of Chicago to Copper Harbor, MI is an all-day trip. I left Naperville about 9AM. In well over an hour I was in Kenosha area where Russ took over the driving. We arrived in Copper Harbor just as the sun set. Along the way, we only stopped for some fresh last-minute groceries in Houghton Wal-Mart—the northern-most biggish city along the way—and took a little side-trip to visit Piers Gorge–the site recently covered by Tom Bamonte's trip report. Otherwise, it was just a long drive. The woods became ever denser with every mile heading north. After Milwaukee, there were few urban areas along the way.

We took a hike at Piers Gorge and watched with excitement as rafts stuffed with thrill-seekers dropped into the white water boils one after another off of a 10' drop. A teenage boy from one of the rafts fell out as the craft went over the falls. The fast-moving water quickly took him and the raft to a boulder known as the VW Beatle. Right as he got close to the rock in the middle of the river, he got himself in between the boulder and the raft. Next moment the raft hit the huge boulder and bounced off of it. The boy disappeared in the white washing machine. I cringed. Luckily, the fella emerged from under the water a couple dozen feet downstream and was promptly fished out by the outfitters camped out on shore and armed with rope-stuffed throw bags.

Copper Harbor is another matter. Here's something that explains the place that it is very well. When we got to the motel located within steps of the ferry dock, we found no one in the office. A list of customers was glued to the inside of the window. It detailed that all guests are to proceed to their rooms and the keys had been left on the table inside. So we stopped to our room. The end of check-in procedure. How's that for safety concerns in the North Woods!

First order of business after settling in the motel was a dry run of kayak packing. We spread the goods on the lawn that separates the motel from Lake Superior—all of 50 feet of it or so—and practiced hard for about an hour with our headlights on. The daylight was all gone. Many things that I planned to take along did not fit. This was, after all, my first long trip out of the boat. Luckily the items that did not make it were luxuries. They stayed behind in Russ's truck without much loss. I believe Russ, who has packed his kayak for camping many times, also had to leave some items in the truck. I believe he mentioned that this was the longest he was going to life out of his Nordkapp. There was something to show for experience. Russ's daily packing chore seemed to go smoother and faster than mine. I will just blame it on the fact that he had those luxurious 16" oval Valley hatches while mine were the poor-man's version—7.5" round ones, all three of them.

Once we were done pretend-packing, about 11PM, we were hungry. We were heading into the wilderness for a week after all. The only burger to be found on the Island was at the Rock Harbor Lodge. Not much remained open in town at this hour. We hit both of the open places. One had the kitchen already closed and offered us quick food. The other one bore a promise of frozen pizza! It sounded mighty good on the night before we will rely on our own cooking skills for a while. It turned out to be a smoky establishment with a loud crowd. In the end, the last supper consisted of French Fries, a gigantic plate of nachos and some local beers. Perfectly willing to gorge ourselves, we could not finish the nacho plate between the two of us!



THE FERRY RIDE

Kayaks have to be lined up in front of the ferry one hour before departure which meant an early morning for us. 7:30AM EST! I enjoyed every last drop of the hot shower before we stepped onto the cold iron decks of the ferry. The crew hoisted our vessels on the top decks and tied them up to the railings. The gear bags were also whisked up onto the upper deck. I found it to be kind of strange that so much weight was being loaded so high on the ferry. In a kayak that spells a date with the bottom. Before long, though, we found ourselves on the front deck of the Isle Royale Queen IV heading into a cold morning breeze northwest toward the Island of Kings. The day was just perfect—stiff breeze from the NW, 1-2' waves, some clouds and refreshing temperatures somewhere in the 50s.

The three-hour trip went quickly as we chatted away with a father-daughter pair of hikers from Upper Michigan. While on the ship, the crew collected the $4 daily fees from all the campers—a good time-saving measure.

It's probably best that I did not see the island on the horizon until we were practically in Rock Harbor. The off-shore rocks and islets in the mist were exactly what I pictured the island to be in my dreams. Peace and serenity all wrapped in the shroud of mystery and accompanied by a harmonious roar of wind and breaking wave best describe the feelings that flooded the consciousness. I was truly moved by the first sight of the island. The anticipation of several months has boiled up to the emotional climax. This was the emotional high of the whole trip for me—the arrival, the promise, the free reign for the imagination and anticipation!

Go to: Day 1 – Day 2 – Day 3 – Day 4 – Day 5 – Day 6 – Day 7 – Reflections

ISLE ROYALE: PRE-TRIP RESEARCH

Go to: Introduction

Here are a couple of web resources I consulted in preparation for the trip. They are in the order in which I read them:

• Rogue Paddler sentimental account of Isle Royale circumnavigation with some inter-personal drama involved
  
• Another circumnavigation account by Chicago's own Dave Naudi with some technical detail and safety tips
  
• Canoe & Kayak article on the destination
  
• SKOAC has several trips to this location including the best picture galleries that I was able to find
  
• And, of course, Jim Dufresne book. This seems to be the ultimate wilderness guide to the destination. The water portion is largely for canoeists or kayakers who want to explore the inland lakes of Isle Royale or stay in protected harbors.
  

Relevant NOAA Nautical Charts include the 14968 (1:120,000 scale) or three times more detailed 14976 (1:40,000). Zoom in on the map and you can view the charts on-line. A little bit more work and you can download them for a more detailed look on your own desktop—see this "How-To" write-up. I bought the more detailed chart but, in the end, decided that printouts from the less detailed chart #14968 would be sufficient for our purposes. In retrospect, I missed the greater detail of the #14976 on the trip as little bays and inlets were sometimes difficult to judge accurately from the larger-scale map. Larger scale charts were sure convenient, though. In general, I would say that the National Geographic Tails Illustrated map would probably be the best resource to guide a circumnavigation. Rocks and depth markings on the NOAA charts are not particularly relevant for kayakers. It's good to know about the shoals during stormy conditions; however, these can be noted at home and maybe even transferred to the topographical land map. The only really useful thing that NOAA charts have is the information on navigational lights, so if you plant to get far off-shore or travel at night NOAA charts would come very handy.

Sticking with the topic of navigation, both Russ and I relied pretty heavily on the Garmin GPS. Russ had an old Legend with some recreational maps of the US and I have uploaded topographical maps of Michigan downloaded from GPS File Depot. Here's also a link to Isle Royale on-line forum thread which includes files with points of interests for Garmin as well as in general GPX format.

Camping on Isle Royale is on the first-come-first-served basis—in other words, you cannot reserve a specific campsite. In our case, we did not even know if we will paddle clockwise or counter-clockwise until we got there—the weather was to decide. Regardless, the park service requires that each camping party fill out an itinerary with a camping site indicated for each night's stay. A cross-country camping permit is also available. This free option allows one to camp anywhere on the Island bar a few areas reserved for wildlife and exclusion zones around trails as well as established camping sites. Most of these are on the island interior so a kayaker with the cross-country permit can basically camp along the entire coastline of the island.

National Data Buoy Center maintains an overlay on Google maps.

Buoys 45001 and 45006 will give you wave heights, water and air temperatures for the area in the days immediately prior to the trip. There are also two weather stations on the west (Rock of Ages) and east (Passage Island Lighthouse) sides of the island. These are the best sources for wind and temperature information. At the time of the writing, these weather stations were only useful in trip preparation. Who knows, maybe by the time you're reading this, real time access to these from the cockpit of the kayak will be available.

Go to:  Getting There – Day 1 – Day 2 – Day 3 – Day 4 – Day 5 – Day 6 – Day 7 – Reflections

Changes on Decks--Nordkapp HS (1987)

Here's a link to a photo gallery tracing my summer project to improve the Nordkapp HS (1987).

The main inspiration for the project was the removal of the hand-pump behind the seat. While it still worked 20 years after being originally installed, it was inoperational in rough water.

Many Greenland-inclined paddlers note that the Nordkapp's cockpit is too high at the back for layback rolls. So I decided to lower it by about 1 inch and make it flush with the back deck. I have pretty long legs, so an ulterior motive for this was to make my squeezing into the ocean cockpit easier.

I consider the project a success! It is much easier to get in now.

I hope this will serve as inspiration or a step-by-step to someone. Would appreciate to hear any feedback or suggestions on improvements or alternatives.

In addition to the pump and cockpit rim changes, the project included:
- Installing a day hatch
- Installing a bulkhead behind the seat to create a third water-tight compartment
- Relocating the skeg control box from behind to in front of the seat
- Installing a recessed deck compass receptacle

Conversion of the hand-pump into a foot-pump is next on the list.