Our departure from Attwood Beach was less than ideal, but we still planned to make it into Windigo. That morning, the fog was so thick we had to use our Garmin devices to locate ourselves in relation to the shore. At one point, I did not come out far enough to clear the pinnacle of a point, almost running aground on the shallow, rocky bottom. Here is the Day 10 video: https://youtu.be/klNyVJW4y14 . The density of the fog obscured everything beyond a few feet from our boats. At times, we found ourselves unable to see each other.
Paddling in the fog, all my focus was required to keep from running into something, whether that was a floating log, the point of land unseen until too late, a rock, a sandbar, or some other impediment. I had a headache from squinting through the white mist that hung over us. The water was calm, fortunately, otherwise we would have remained at Attwood Beach.
As we continued around Rainbow Point, we emerged into bright sunshine. The clarity of the sky astounded, following so closely after the fog. Still, we beached at Rainbow Cove to stretch our legs.
The beach at Rainbow Cove is scattered with small snail shells that glowed amber and a pale pearl in the afternoon sunlight, standing out against the red and blue sandstone, white quartz, and other small brown stones lining the beach.
Notice that it is not sand that composed the beach, but instead progressively smaller stones and small pieces of driftwood. Among the stones, the shells stood out starkly. Within a couple square feet I found ten or twelve of them, with several still housing the original occupants. Those I dropped gently back into the lapping waves, realizing how silly the act was, given the expanse of the beach and smallness of my efforts.
After an hour lounging about at Rainbow Cove, we decided to move along. Pushing off shore, we headed toward Cumberland Point, paddling in the light waves. As we came over the Cumberland Reef, we heard the closer rumblings of thunder. Grey clouds were visible on the horizon (below) with the clear blue sky overhead. Rounding the point, the expanse of water extended unimpeded into Grace Harbor. We paddled leisurely, passing Washington Island and the others populating
the boundaries of Grace Harbor, towards Washington Harbor. These were familiar waters as we had crossed them several times aboard the Voyageur II on our inter-island hops or departures from Rock Harbor. Nearing Grace Island, the rumbling banged closer. We aborted our plan to push on to Washington Harbor into Windigo. We sprinted toward Grace Island, dragging our boats ashore, and tagging the door of the vacant shelter. Unloading quickly, we were doused
with a few large plops before we were safely under the overhanging roof of the shelter. The neighbor at the next shelter pulled up a couple minutes later, drenched as the sky opened over him. We noticed his white Solstice Titan GT as we peered through the rain from our perch, standing on the bench of the picnic table, under the eave of the shelter, to stay dry from the rain.
Hi Duane & Beth. Love reading your adventures. Do you offer “guided” circumnavigation trips around the island? Thanks
Thanks, Rick! Unfortunately, we are not approved for guided kayaking.