I rose bright and early Monday morning and continued north from Effingham. Some five hours later I was in the southwestern Michigan city of Grand Rapids, where I'd reserved a room in an Air B & B.
I had a specific reason for stopping here. One of the guys I'll be racing with up at Suttons Bay this Saturday--one of the favorites to win the race, I'd say--is a guy named Rob Hartman, and besides being a really good canoe and kayak racer, he's quite the musician. And he had a gig Monday evening at a restaurant and bar in downtown Grand Rapids, about a 15-minute walk from where I was staying. I got to see him play his upright bass with his mates in the John Shea Trio, pianist John Shea and drummer Fred Knapp. I'd seen the trio in several videos on You Tube and I knew they were good, and they did not disavow me of that belief Monday. Rob thumped some hot solos, too.
On Tuesday I headed north yet again, this time driving for only about three hours. That delivered me to Fisherman's Island State Park, where I'd reserved a campsite for three nights. Finally, I could put down some shallow roots.
I've stayed at all kinds of state parks, and their campgrounds run the gamut in the sort of amenities they offer. Some are downright posh, with flush toilets, hot showers, water and electricity at each site, and more. At Fisherman's Island, things are closer to the rustic end of the spectrum. The restrooms are pit toilets, and the only water source is a couple of pumps that bring up rust-colored water from a well. And these facilities are a bit of hike from the campsite I reserved online last week. I'm mostly unfazed, having lived the rustic life a few times in the past. More of a challenge is that even though the temperature when I arrived was some 15 degrees lower than back home in Memphis, it was still very muggy. And the mosquitoes are pretty bad: they're easy to kill, and their bites don't seem to make me itch, but it's nevertheless annoying to have them buzzing around all the time. It was quite windy when I arrived, but the woods are so dense that the wind can't really get in to offer some relief from the mugginess and drive away the bugs. I could hear the wind whistling through the treetops, but on the ground I could barely feel it at all. On the bright side, it's just a short walk from my campsite to the edge of Lake Michigan, where I can enjoy a breeze and not have so many bugs.
Yesterday morning I was ready to paddle for the first time since leaving home. I drove to the nearest town (Charlevoix, Michigan) because I needed a couple of supplies, and I figured there should be some access to the water there. The way the wind had been blowing, I couldn't imagine that there wasn't some decent downwind action on the lake, and it turned out to be much more than just decent: the runs were as lovely as anything I've seen on the Millers Run. Unfortunately, the south-southwest wind was blowing out (i.e., away from shore) by at least a 10-degree angle, and being by myself and unfamiliar with the area, I knew I had to be cautious. I availed myself of maybe ten minutes of utterly enjoyable downwind surfing, then decided I didn't want to get any farther from shore. Fortunately, I felt right at home paddling back to shore in beam conditions: while the Mississippi River doesn't offer true downwind very often, it's given me many days of practice in crazy washing-machine stuff, and paddling laterally across clean downwind runs seems easy by comparison.
I'd been on the water for about 50 minutes. As I took out, I devised a plan for the afternoon: back at Fisherman's Island State Park the shoreline was more in parallel with the wind direction, and there I should be able enjoy some downwind action for longer. I went back to my campsite and had some lunch and rested for a while, and then drove down to the park's beach area. Once there, I realized that the weather had not been cooperative: the wind had abated considerably. I got in the boat and started paddling, hoping that farther out from the beach some decent conditions might be lingering. I found that there were indeed some rideable runs, but they weren't the kind we all dream about, where you can stop paddling and just surf for minutes at a time. Out here I would catch a run but have to keep paddling to keep my boat moving sufficiently to link to another run. It was actually very good practice for me, the kind I really could use a lot more of if I really want to get good at downwinding, but it wasn't the pure fun of the conditions I'd found in the morning.
The dying wind was part of a changing weather pattern. By suppertime the air seemed less muggy, and a while later, when I'd taken my camp chair to the lakeside to sit and read my book, I felt the wind shift so that chillier air was coming from the north. Back at the campsite I put on another layer of clothing.
As I lay in my tent waiting to fall asleep last night, some light rain started falling. Then, around 5 o'clock this morning, I woke up to find it raining something fierce. I managed to fall back asleep for another hour and a half, and when I woke back up it was just a light drizzle, so I got up and made coffee in damp, but not sodden, conditions.
After breakfast I returned to the beach to paddle again. Yesterday I had paddled the more stable of the two surfskis I have with me (a V10 Sport), but today I opted for the other one (a V10L). Once I was on the water I realized that the conditions were not dead calm, but in fact very similar to what I'd paddled yesterday afternoon, albeit from the northwest rather than the southwest. I felt just fine in the V10L, and after paddling against the conditions for a half-hour, I turned around and did the same kind of workout I'd done yesterday afternoon.
This afternoon I'm back in Charlevoix, using a coffee shop's wifi to write and upload this post. Having had a couple of poor-man's suppers in my campsite the last two nights, I think I'll see what the eating options are here in town this evening. Tonight is my last night at Fisherman's Island, and tomorrow I'll make the trip over to the town of Suttons Bay, the site of this weekend's race, near which I've reserved a site in another campground.
The race on Saturday is supposed to be a downwind. But of course, how truly downwindy it is will depend on the weather. The race director has been sending out e-mails, and the latest says the conditions are likely to be fair, but not epic. Maybe they'll be similar to what I paddled on yesterday afternoon and this morning. If so, I'll have to be ready to throw in lots and lots of sprints, and whether my fitness level is up to the task remains to be seen. I'll post a full report here the next time I get where there's some wifi.
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