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Jun 5, 2009 - North Tea Lake to Manitou Lake - 1 portage totalling 410 m

Awoke to the sounds of a strange duck that was making a fuss as it circled overhead of the tent. I got out and it landed in a tree (tree duck?) and then continued squaking as it flew back and forth for the rest of the morning. The moose paid a visit again as we were packing up camp, and then as we paddled away shw waded into the water in front of our boat and swam over to the next island. The going was easy today as a good breeze was heading in our direction of travel. The three km paddle to the north end of the lake went very quickly. Unloading the boat at the portage was tricky as the shore was rocky, and the waves quite tall. The portage itself was easy, and then we put in at Manitou Lake in calm waters since we were now on the lee side. The mosquitos here were horrendous so we did not waste any time getting going again. We paddled out onto Manitou gaining speed the further we travelled north as the wind and waves increased. We spied an interesting cliff on the west shore that we may hike to later in the afternoon. We found a nice campsite on a large island, set up camp, relaxed a bit, and then cooked some fallafel for lunch. Relaxed more and then we took a hike to explore our island. The mosquitos are really bad so we kept moving. At the "summit" of the hill on the island we found the remains of some sort of tree house. We never did find the second campsite, as the island is quite large and we were driven to head back by the biting insects. Cooking supper was in a stiff wind (but fortunately mosquito free). It was an experiment that turned out quite well; Bulk-Barn dry chilli, dehydrated vegetables, red lentils, on whole grain noodles. Yummy! We gave up on the fire, figuring we would burn the place down with the wind, but then the wind slowed, so it was built up again. Later in the evening we went out for a paddle to watch the sunset and full moon. As we were paddling back to camp in the dim light, we both saw what we believed to be a bear swimming right towards us. It turned out to be a rock, but the size and shape looked very convincing, and the waves made it look like it was moving.

Morning ipod dancing to the appease the sun gods.










Figuring out which direction to go.




Paddling by moonlight.


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