Dates: 9/7/21
BWCA Day: 4
Miles: 8 paddling
Portages: 5
Weather: Partly cloudy, heavy rain, light rain, wind – all the weather!

Although I had hung out with everyone on the trip at least once, there were only a couple of folks I knew well. And my canoe mates weren’t either of those folks. Additionally, the whole group has been friends for years, so they know each other well and have a lot of memories together.

Something I learned from them are the three types of fun:

1. You’re having fun in that very moment
2. It’s not super fun right away, but not long afterwards you realize you’re having fun
3. It’s not super fun, but in the future you might look back on that moment and realize you had fun

The day after our glorious day of drinking and naked dancing turned into a Type 3 Fun kind of day.

During the night a crazy fucking storm hit. Lightening, thunder and monsoon-like rains. One guy’s tent flooded in the night. Another tent only suffered minor water intake. It turned packing in the morning to a soggy, depressing mess.

But it didn’t rain at all in the morning. In fact, we enjoyed lunch at the beginning of one of the portages with sunshine and naked bathing. As soon as we had our lunches packed a storm cloud rolled in and shit rain all over us.

This storm also brought crazy wind with it. Our three-person canoe isn’t the easiest to maneuver on a calm day. Once the wind picked up we were all over the place and almost ran into multiple rocks as the wind pushed us from shore to shore.

One of the canoes pulled over to the shore to wait out the storm. We attempted to join them, but the wind pushed us back. We almost fucking capsized! Eventually it pushed us around a bend and out of the gusts. We were finally able to take shelter near the shore.

The water on the lake looked angry. Small white caps dotted the water. There was no fucking way were going anywhere until the weather calmed down. After 10-15 minutes the white caps disappeared. Although the wind still made paddling challenging, we at least made it to camp.

The rain stopped just long enough for us to set up our tents, then it started back up. Instead of being miserable outside, six folks piled into our three-person tent, and we watched movies. First was Talladega Nights, which I’m not really a fan of.

Then we watched Hunt for the Wilderpeople, and it instantly became one of new favorite movies. About halfway through the movie the rain stopped. Just in time for us to make dinner.

Training Journal Boundary Waters camping canoeing exercise fishing journal paddling