[Rhodes22-list] Water Trips On Lake Superior

[ROGER PIHLAJA]

Hi Jesse,

For the Boy Scout Shipwreck SCUBA Diving High Adventure Trip, I will be wearing a full wetsuit, hood, dive gloves, and dive booties, all 5 mm neoprene.  This gear is quite insulating, to the point that you must wait until immediately  prior to the dive to suit up, or you risk overheating.

For the kayaking trip, I will be wearing a 3 mm shorty wetsuit, booties, knee pads (my knees tend to chafe on the inside of the kayak + the inside of the hull is not insulated & it tends to suck the heat out of anything that touches it), paddling gloves, my Tilley hat, and of, course, a PFD.  If the weather is cold &/or windy, I will add nylon rain pants, a fleece jacket, a nylon splash jacket with a hood, and warmer gloves over the paddling gloves.  We try to be on the water in our kayaks at 1st light because the wind is usually calm in the early morning.  If the wind and waves pick up by late morning, we will often take a long lunch break and then get back out on the water in the evening when the wind often lets up.  In the summer in the UP, it stays light until 10:00 PM, so we can often get in quite a few miles in the evening.  We are scheduled to paddle about 8-10 miles per day, so we only need 4-5 hours of decent paddling weather to log each day’s quota.  We will have extra supplies, so we can stay in place in case of a bad weather day.  Lake Superior is in charge on this trip!  The first day will be the most dangerous as we paddle past the tallest of the Pictured Rocks.  The shoreline here is very unforgiving with very few safe places to haul out if something bad happens.

We scheduled both of these trips in August to allow Lake Superior as much time as possible to warm up and yet not too late in the season when the weather tends to close in and make a sea kayaking trip a very iffy proposition.  Stay tuned!  Lake Superior may spank us causing us to have to portage our boats and gear out for several miles along the North Country Trail.  If it was idiot proof, it wouldn’t be a High Adventure Trip!

When I have to stand my watch in foul weather, I find that layering up is the key.  If it’s really bad, I will wear a polypropylene underwear base layer top and bottom, fleece middle layer top and bottom, nylon ski mask, polypropylene glove liners, ice fishing gloves, foul weather bib overalls, a good breathable splash jacket with a hood, thick synthetic insulated socks, and insulated pull-on Muck boots. I usually wear a baseball cap under the hood so it better supports the hood’s visor and helps to shed water away from my face.  My bib overalls are from Gill.  My splash jacket is from Duluth Trading Alaska Hardgear.  I don’t like the current trend towards nonvisible colors from the big name makers and venders of foul weather gear.  My Duluth Trading jacket is bright yellow, plain and simple.    Style points don’t count when you go into the water, you just want to be seen.  This outfit seems to work pretty well as long as the temperature isn’t so low that the spray is freezing onto the topsides.  I usually wear my life line harness over the top of my type 3 PFD.  The type 3 PFD adds a little more insulation on your torso vs an inflatable PFD and it doesn’t restrict your activity.  Even more important, it adds some padding around your rib cage when your tether jerks you to a stop!

Boy, 2 trips to the Apostle Islands in one year.  I’m jealous!

Roger Pihlaja
S/V Dynamic Equilibrium

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From: Jesse Shumaker<mailto:jesse.laten.shumaker at gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2020 7:39 AM
To: rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org<mailto:rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
Subject: Re: [Rhodes22-list] Getting the weight off the tires for winter storage

Roger, good luck on your SCUBA and kayaking adventures!  It sounds like you
are making the most out of this summer despite the issues with the dam
failures.  From my sailing trip to Apostle Islands, I came to appreciate how
cold the water (and the air blowing over the water) is in Lake Superior.  As
I'm sure you know, the land based forecast only somewhat relates to what the
weather feels like over the water.  At one point while we were sailing, I
was wearing almost every item of clothing that I brought which resulted in A
LOT of layers.  What kind of wetsuits do you wear to stay warm for water
activities in the Great Lakes?  Perhaps the water will have warmed up some
by the end of summer.

We had a great time on our sailing trip in the Apostle Islands in June.  We
had plenty of wind and got the Jeanneau 33 to over 8 knots on a few
occasions: under full sail, with the first reef, and with the second reef.
There was barely any one out there when we were there so most of the time
there were no other boats in sight.  On the last day we left the anchorage
at Presque Isle Bay on Stockton Island and were beating into the wind as we
made our way back to the marina.  Once we made it through the narrow stretch
between Long Island and Madeline Island, the wind really picked up and we
had to drop sails quickly.  That was my first experience with a few waves
coming over the bow and spray making it all the way back to the cockpit.  We
were getting the remains of the Cristobal storm as it came north.

A friend had a trip planned to Apostle Islands with his wife to get
certified through ASA for bareboat charter, but his wife can't go and he
needed someone else to come in order to still do the class.  I did the ASA
103 and 104 in Kemah, Texas in February just before the pandemic hit, but I
could certainly use more instruction and time at the helm of a bigger boat
in bigger water, so I'm headed back to Apostle Islands again in early August
with my friend.  It will be interesting to see what the weather is like in
comparison to June.  This time we'll be on a Hunter 34.



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