Up at 5:15am again with the sky turning morning gray. We are both a little stiff in the muscles but after coffee and tea while gazing across a dead still Hustler Lake and listening to a loon, we soon forgot the muscles. Our food pack took a beating that first day. We planned to have pancakes, bacon and syrup on our layover day. The pounding of the food bag smashed the plastic Bob Evans syrup packs which thankfully were in a baggie. We decided to use it so as not to have to deal with the mess. While further checking the bag, Wil found his lunch of peanut butter, which was in an old plastic roll up tube (Like toothpaste comes in) was popped open and peanut butter was all over his food bags. Ate a great breakfast, cleaned up the messes and was on the water by 10:00am.
We headed to the first portage, 310 rods into Oyster Lake. That's almost a mile but it sure loosened up those muscles. A rod is 16.5 feet, so 310 rods = 5115 feet (A mile is 5280 feet) or 1705 yards which is 17 football fields. 2/3 of the way through we had to re-enter the canoe for 50 yards before finishing the portage. That really took the wind out of our sails. Oyster is a big lake and lots of people were out fishing. Took the 65 rods into Rocky Lake, which is an interesting lake with some rising outcroppings of rock. 85 rods brought us to Green Lake. The wind was now kicking up some. To access Ge-be-on-e-quet you must portage 120 rods. It wasn't too bad so we decided to push on and make Pocket Lake for a layover day. Besides, Ge-be-on-e-quet was very busy. 35 rods brought us into Ge-be-on-e-quet Creek which was filled with lily pads and other vegetation, plus we had the pleasure of paddling directly into a stiff headwind. There was one small beaver dam to pull over where Pocket Lake opened up before us and the campsite on the island in front of us was open. We busted through the wind and reached our new home after 12.81 miles (including portaging) at 4:30pm.
It was a grassy site without much shade but we made it work. After setting up camp I went skinny dipping to wash off the last two days sweat. The water was cold (talk about shrinkage) but very refreshing. After filtering drinking water it was Happy Hour. We had Pocket Lake to ourselves. In fact, we only saw 2 other canoes until reaching Loon Lake a couple days later. Supper was hamburger with instant potatoes which was real filling. Kicked back and watched the moon rise again getting closer to full. It was so peaceful and relaxing. Sometime in the night when nature called, the stars were shining bright and bold even with the moon trying to wash them out. "It sure is good to be us!!"
