Day 2 - Indianpoint Lake & Isaac Lake

It rained all night. It deluged. It poured. It showered and drenched us in torrents and monsoons. We woke up, and it continued. Rain, rain, go away...

First we had to take-down the camp. We had managed to set-up our tent and tarp in a way that was effective, thank goodness, but we didn't really have spare clothes. So, we put the cold & wet stuff from yesterday back on. We huddled underneath a common cooking area trying to eat something for breakfast. Again, I didn't have much appetite. And it's hard to form routines and be efficient (i.e. learn) when you are constantly distracted by your own physical & emotional situation.

Back onto Indianpoint Lake. I was paddling with Quina again, she in the stern and me in the bow. I preferred the bow because although you are the "motor" of the boat, you do less steering and therefore less thinking. My brain was protesting any form of intelligent thought by that point, so I figured it was a safer bet. It didn't help us much though; I was so exhausted that I didn't have much steam and we ended up being the last of our group at the portage site, again.

Another portage. 2 km. In the pouring rain. At one point we switched portage partners, and I went with Doug, who was great. He had energy, he kept me going, he let me rest, and was generally supportive. When we got to the end, we ate our lunch while waiting for the canoes ahead of us to launch. Pulling out your crushed/smashed food (which for me was pita with pb & j) and trying to eat in the rain while fending off mosquitoes was not super-pleasant. I got a few bites of food this time I think, but people were rushing us because everyone wanted to get to camp as soon as possible, to get out of the drowning rain.

The place where we were launching the canoes was so muddy that we struggled with keeping our shoes on. The mud was so deep and wet it would suck your shoe right off your foot. Made it kind of hard to get your balance. Once we launched, we paddled through a zig-zag marsh and headed down Isaac Lake. It's still raining. 7 km paddle to our campsite (#14), again with Quina and again we are last. By this time I'm fairly convinced that I am the weak link, because, well, I sure as heck feel weak.

Oh, what's this? Our campsite is flooded? There's a waterfall running through it? Oh, good, I just didn't think this day could get any better.

We paddle a little ways further and with luck, find a communal shelter that is not in use by anyone else. This is great because there are 14 of us and the shelter is meant to be shared. It's basically a covered area with picnic tables underneath and a wood-burning stove. It's NOT supposed to be a camping area. But, with our campsite flooded we didn't have much choice.

First thing we did is get changed out of our wet clothes and we hung them all around the shelter to drip. They didn't really dry, unless you had them right up next to the stove, and as you can imagine, that space was at a premium. We huddled around that stove like it was our lifeline, and it sure seemed that it was. I had a really hard time warming up; I may have had a touch of hypothermia. Even after they moved me to sit right in front of the stove (the warmest spot), I couldn't stop the teeth chattering and shivering for a while. But eventually it got better, and I dried out and warmed up.

Then there was discussion about the next day's paddle, which sounded tough. The trip leaders decided to switch partners around the group to balance things out. The stronger paddlers were going to be paired with the weaker paddlers, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I was lucky enough to be paired with Adam, who definitely knows his way around a canoe. Not to mention he was super nice about being stuck with me. ;)

Time to set-up camp. In the rain. Again. We did it with a fair amount of success and everything stayed relatively dry underneath the awesome tarp we were using. Setting up a tarp is like a big problem-solving activity since you might not have many/any trees available and you need to predict where water is going to go. The water issue's not a hard one to solve when it's already raining, because your skill (or ineptitude) becomes clear rather quickly. I have to say, Quina and I were a very good tarp-team. We got consistent compliments from people about how well our tarp was set-up. I even started to look forward to the next campsite to see what variables we'd have to navigate. It was... fun?

Didn't eat much again. But my appetite, the weather, and our morale were about to take a drastic turn for the better!



(No photos. It rained too much to take out the camera.)