The Apostle Islands on Anchor; Off grid for 2 nights: Weds/Thurs nites, July 10 & 11, 2013

Comparing Madeline Island to the islands @ home, it is most like Kelly's Island. There are people & cars, a few restaurants, gift shops, 2 bars & a state park with campground. 

see the profile?

We left Madeline Island on Wednesday, July 10 after staying 2 nights. It's a beautiful morning with blue skies & calm water. We are now cruising among the 22 Apostle Islands. Some are small like York @ 1.5 miles in length, some are higher elevation like Oak @ 1080 ft. Madeline Island is the biggest & only one inhabited. Some Islands do have Park Rangers that stay on & off. Some have bears in residence.  We arrived @ Stockton Island and anchored in Julian Bay. Rick had told us this was his favorite & we can see why. There is a long sand beach adjacent to a shore of rocks, cliffs and many varieties of healthy green trees. On the eastern shoreline are beautiful waterfalls and red sandstone rocks, some freestanding, some hollowed out with small caves, kinda like a small scale pictured rocks but beautiful in its own way. 

We hiked along the trails, (love marked trails, I am not a trailblazer) and I wore my newest gift; a bear bell. Garry has hiked with us prior & I've always bemoaned the fact I didn't have one and so I would attempt to sound like a bell.  I must have been annoying enough, because Garry presented a bell to me on this trip.  We took our dinghy all along that awesome Eastern shoreline. We saw kayakers & on our first night, we had the company of 13 sailboats. We visited with the Park Ranger & she educated us about a ship wreck that is located in Julian Bay. The Noquebay, a Schooner Barge, while carrying lumber headed to Buffalo, NY (my home town) caught on fire as it was being towed by a steamer ship in 1905. Doug has engineered a glass bottom bucket for such occasions & we tried it out, (it looks like we are getting sick) but we are actually looking @ the shipwreck. 

The Ranger told us @ last count (not this year) there were 13 bears on Stockton Island, she has seen one this year so far. Sand Island (a neighboring island) is closed to visitors right now because they have an aggressive bear there. Some kayakers left some food out which the bear found & ate, so after that, the bear was foraging for food near boats & destroyed half of a kayak & then entered a tent with people sleeping in it. The bear did not hurt anyone. Now they have to retrain him not to want people food, another example of why people shouldn't feed wild animals. 

We glimpsed a wonderful scene of 2 loons swimming with 2 of their babies, Wow, no pics because we didn't want to get too close, the Mom was already sounding her loon cry.

What or who do you see?

Find the duck-is she Lucky, Ducky, Loony, Dinghy,
Dreamy or Quackers ?

Waterford needed to move to a dock on Thursday because poor Garry is still working & he needed a cell signal & wifi :(  We split up after a great brunch on Waterford. They headed for Bayfield & we stayed put because the forecast was great & our anchorage was beautiful. Our second night we only had 1 other boat in the bay with us. 

We watched a great sunset & the stars were so close, I wanted to reach out & grab one.