NOTE: Since I have no way of recharging my phone on Isle Royale, and its 4-year-old battery won’t hold much charge anymore, keeping a current journal on it for three days is not practical. And I forgot to bring paper to do it old-style. So the island logs are written after the fact, from short notes made along the way.
Tuesday, July 22 am
At about 5:15, I woke to the sound of the wind. It was clear that my hope of the rain holding off until morning was in vain. Figuring that it would be better to break camp in the dark than in the rain, I went into action. I’ve broken camp dozens of times, and under rush conditions like this a couple times, but this had the added wrinkle of the special bike/hike split of my gear.
The wind gusted and thunder rumbled, and when I’d finished, I shuttled my pack and then my bike to the state park restrooms. There I met a threesome (30ish “guide” with two teenage newbies) who were in much the same situation (but with a car).
During a break in the rain I awkwardly strapped on the pack and rode to the dock. The helmet was already stuffed with clothes I was leaving behind, so I left it on the “floor” of the scooter. I’d forgotten which street to turn down, and the rain was starting. I got there about 6:30 and just hung out under the awning with a few other early arrivals.
The parking lot attendant thought my scooter was cute, and didn’t charge me for parking it. Before I could even ask for someplace with a non-mushy surface, he directed me to a spot in the lawn with a few chunks of asphalt, which he understood would be helpful for the center stand of a motorbike. With some hesitation I checked that what I was leaving was weatherproof. In a last minute improvisation, I placed my second pillow (which I don’t have room for on the pack, so I had to leave it… somehow) under the plastic seat cover that the dealership included with my new scooter… which I’d only brought on a whim.
Loading the Isle Royale Queen IV was a more hasty process than usual due to the rain, but the crew diligently stowed it all safely under a tarp on the roof of the ferry. Which is good.
You know it’s going to be an interesting boat ride when the captain – a veteran of Lake Superior, who’s been doing this crossing for ages – announces “take a look off to your left; that’s … something!” The weather evolved as we headed north, from simple overcast and wind, into… something.
It was a formation of clouds and fog that – as the good captain implied – defied description. It wasn’t immediately threatening per se. But it was strange, and unpredictable. It was if clouds were coming off the lake, meeting incoming clouds in the sky. He advised passengers to get inside if lightning started, or immediately if he said so. Neither was needed, in part because it started pouring, and everyone came inside voluntarily.
All the while, the theme song to “Gilligan’s Island” played in my head: “a three hour tour, a three hour tour”.
But aside from a bumpy ride, nothing came of it. It was still very foggy when we arrived the island, so we took the more conservative route into the harbor, past Scoville Point. The captain assured us that there were barrier islands less than a mile to our left, and the main island the same distance to our right: neither was visible.
But shortly after we docked, the fog lifted and the clouds began to blow over. SPOILERS: the weather was fine for the rest of my time on the island.
More later.