Last week we were in the university's newspaper and Sunday we were in the Sault Evening News. Every time I turn the corner there is someone else recognizing me and voicing their support. It is really encouraging to feel the sense of community and care through local support. Hopefully, we'll be saying the same thing about our monetary goal...haha!
Tonight I met with Brian Davie (the Red Cross director of the local chapter) and with an avid canoer/outdoorsman, Otto. Otto does wild trips that entail traveling upstream, hiking through miles of rough terrain with canoe in hand, paddling with blue whales, and portaging through miles of traffic to reach the next landing zone. Not only has he had 40+ years of experience, but he is well educated and is considered an expert. He met with us to discuss our progress and to give us some pointers. A few things we picked up from the conversation were things that we hadn't thought of or discussed far enough to devise a plan. One of the things he mentioned was using the Coast Guard as an escort across open water crossings. We are looking at two large open water crossings. One being the 10 mile stretch of Grand Traverse Bay and the other being Green Bay, which is about the same. The challenge with open water crossings is not only that the wind has more area without barriers and therefor is usually stronger which also creates more turbulent waters and can make paddling dangerous, but in some instances we may not be able to see land and will have to rely solely on our compass and not on our own perception.
Another topic we discussed was "comfort." Otto told a story of when he was paddling through a river and what seemed to be a innocent and important clothing seam turned into a very annoying problem. He said that seams will feel like razor blades after a week. Glad we got the life saving tip before we were sliced. I can feel the throbbing now. Sometimes you think you have thought about all of the angles when approaching a task, but then someone mentions something way out of left field and you realize you have some planning to do. Like when Otto mentioned the miles and miles of private land. Well, I naively thought we could make a landing to set up camp and if it were private beach we could walk on up to the residence to describe our trip and ask for permission to use the beach, but Otto has experienced otherwise. He told of stories of some friendly waterfront owners and mostly not so friendly ones. We have enough concern for safety on the lake to have to deal with upset residents. So, back to the mapping board to determine safe, public landing sites.
Tomorrow we are meeting again to get our fundraisers in line and to make sure we are on page and meeting our tasks to leave in a month.
That's all for now from the East shores of Lake Superior
Sean
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