Sailing trip to the Apostle Islands of Lake Superior, Wisconsin

Pre-Note - this was a report i wrote just after the trip (24th-27th July) ! As I directed the sailing at the camp I worked for this summer, I got to lead a 4 day sailing trip, with six girls. It was one of my best average adventures!!

I have just returned from our 4 day sailing trip around the Apostle Islands of Lake Superior! As someone who has largely sailed off the southern coast of the UK, where the forecast is not usually on our side, it made me so appreciative of the amazing weather we had for the trip. We were met with glorious sunshine for both of the full days on the lake, with enough wind to make for excellent sailing. I was blown away by the beauty and serenity of the national lakeshore, where the wildlife and breathtaking sunsets made for such a memorable expedition. We were skippered by our engaging captain Matt, who the girls called M-dog, in repeat of the nickname of J-dog of the skipper on the trip the previous year. This amused me but baffled him more as he prepped himself to juggle the girls' rather outlandish banter that would proceed the rest of the trip.

Let's start at the beginning. To reach our destination of Bayfield, we had a 4.5 hour drive through Minnesota and into Wisconsin, which we shared with the boys camp sailors. We were largely entertained by Taylor Swift, and the song ‘Stick Season’ by Noah Khan, (which the girls are obsessed with at the moment!) as well as other classic road trip staples. There was such a buzz in the air on the drive as everyone chatted in excitement over their hopes and fears for the trip ahead, with so many expectations as the legacy of the trip is stupendous. We stopped just over halfway at the Thompson Hill Visitors Parkway to eat our cold cuts, and look out over the alluring view of Lake Superior, which felt like our first sneak peak of what was to come. 

When we finally reached the beautiful town of Bayfield, we were all amazed at its quaintness, it appeared as if it had been plucked straight out of a fairytale. We were welcomed by the representatives from All Hands Sailing who introduced us to Matt. He took us on our tour of our home for the next 3 nights, Vahevala. She is a Tartan 37’, and the newest boat in their fleet. Her name comes from the 1971 Loggins and Messina song that celebrates ‘Vahevala’, a fictional island paradise beloved by sailors. Our first activity was an initial briefing. We introduced ourselves along with an unusual icebreaker, a boring fact about ourselves, which turned out to be rather amusing. We then made a bucket list of all the things the girls wanted to accomplish during the trip and whittled it down to their top 3. Matt left us for the evening, and we quickly unpacked, gathered ourselves up and headed out for takeaway pizza overlooking the water. Between the 14 of us we hoovered up 4 20” pizzas and then digested our food over lots of card games and journaling time. Two of the girls volunteered to make the raspberry cheesecake no bake, which we devoured in the cockpit as the sun went down. These no bakes became an iconic staple of the trip which you will see by the end of this report! Although the girls had lots of energy, we made sure to get a good night's sleep so we were ready for the sailing adventure to begin in the morning!

I woke up a little before the campers and set up breakfast on the cockpit table. We had a spread of granola, yogurt, and fresh berries. Captain Matt joined us around 9am, and gave us a little briefing and weather update, before we got ready to cast off. We started up the engine, and one of the girls at the helm, we edged our way out of the dock to begin our journey! To familiarise ourselves with the boat we simply motored the 40 minute journey to our first bypass, Basswood Island, arriving at 11.09! We kept a log of the entire trip on the boat whiteboard, which now acts as a fun reminder of all the little moments that may have otherwise been forgotten! On route, the girls got a chance to learn parts of the boat as they were given clothes pegs with terms on them that they needed to attach in the right place. We hovered alongside the shoreline as Matt gestured to a lighter patch in the water that revealed an old sunken dock which was visible below the surface. As we carried on we all high-fived the leaves of a protruding branch, and in doing so felt initiated into our trip. Our first anchorage and lunch spot was at Hermit Island, where we relaxed in the sunshine and ate some yummy pizza bagels. We then all ventured out in the dinghy to explore the half moon cave on hermits shore. The cave was just high enough for the dinghy to fit under if we all slid below the surface of the inflatable tubes and pulled ourselves along using our hands. After a few screams and lots of laughter at our echoes bouncing off the walls we got out and swam around and were surprised that we could touch the bottom. The girls played around with underwater videos using their cameras and the camp GoPro, before returning to the Vahevala for hot cocoa to warm everyone up! For our next leg we hoisted the sails and got everyone to practice tacking upwind. Everyone got a chance at each role. It was such a pleasure to see everyone taking part and sailing the boat super well! Our anchorage for the night was off Oak Island, where we cooked a delicious chicken, as well as tofu, stir fry. We started off the tradition of doing a rose, bud, thorn, discussion, where everybody would pick their favourite moment and something they found hard from the day, as well as something they were looking forward to. This was a lovely way of sharing as a group and summarising the day. Next, two volunteers made the no bake for dessert. After which we rowed ashore to explore and attempted to master the art of stone skipping with a varied level of success! We ended the night on a couple of rounds of triple solitaire before a much needed sleep after an exhilarating and eventful first day on the lake!
 
For day 3 I was determined to give the girls a good taste of an English breakfast so we cooked scrambled eggs, bacon and turkey sausage, as well as oatmeal all round to make it a triumphant feast. The girls gave positive feedback on the scrambled eggs so I am hopeful that it was a success! We set sail to travel back on ourselves to hermit island. When we arrived it was pretty choppy and some of the girls started to feel motion sick. We decided it was best to go for a swim and get to the shore so we could recover on steady land. This seemed to do the trick as we headed back to the boat for lunch, which was a jumble of chicken, tofu, and pb&j wraps/sandwiches. I was super impressed with how the girls dealt with their sickness, as they managed to push through the discomfort, and continue on with the day with gusto! After lunch we then got back in the water to jump off some well known rock spots that Captain Matt had scoped out for us when we arrived. The girls loved this and many told me it was one of the highlights of the trip. The afternoon was spent sailing to Julian Bay on Stockton Island, which was one of the most beautiful locations on our trip. The girls danced about in the little waves hitting the shoreline and tested out the sand which was rumoured to ‘sing’ when you walk barefoot. Although a little disappointed by the volume of the singing we can now verify this rumour! Next we traversed round the shore to the neighbouring Presque Isle Bay to anchor up for our last night, as it was more sheltered from the wind. This was clearly a popular spot as there were lots of boats stopped here, including the boys in ‘Dragonfly’, who we waved at as we went by. We made pasta penne and meatballs, and salad with a delicious balsamic dressing, and sat and watched the sunset. Now the sunsets over lake Plantagenet at camp are something special, but we all agreed this may have been the best we’d seen this summer! We finished the evening by discussing our rose, bud, thorns, as well as journal and draw on our Apostle Islands map a step by step overview of our route so far. Lastly, we ate our final no bake of the trip, and then settled down to our last couple of rounds of triple solitaire. It turned into a fairly eventful night, as there was a short patch of thunder and lightning at some point. I was wide awake but I was amazed at how unaffected the girls were as most of them either opened an eye and went back to sleep or slept right through!
 
On our last day we woke early as we wanted to get in pancake making before heading off on our two hour motor back to Bayfield. They were so tasty, covered in our toppings of peanut butter, honey, yogurt, banana and leftover berries. We took turns to helm our motor back, and put up the mainsail for stability as it was a little choppy. One safely back in Bayfield, we topped up our fuel, and the girls watched as all our waste got sucked up to be disposed of - yuck! We put in a big group effort to clean up Vahevala and pack away our things, which was made difficult by the beating sun. We were rewarded by some salt water taffy, which our driver Toaster had brought us for the journey back! We said our goodbyes and thanks to Captain Matt, and took a final gaze out over beautiful Bayfield before heading the 4.5 hours back to camp, with a stop for cold cuts and slushies halfway through!

As an edit of this was sent to the parents of the girls as a summary report i signed it off...
Campingly yours,
Phoebe “Fizz” Mayhew

To explain, "Fizz", was my camp nickname, which everyone has to have, of which the story is too tedious to put into words. If you are genuinely curious, i'll try and put it into words when i next see you!