Homeward Bound

We camped on this little island last night because it was fairly near the Ebel’s home base and we had to have the boat returned by 10am.  We set out after breakfast, traveling at half-throttle because we had plenty of time.  Perfect day outside, nice to sit on the top deck and watch the fishing boats whiz by.  Everybody waves at each other on the water.  Nobody waves at each other on land.  It’s the weirdest thing.

Three other boats were also being returned so we didn’t have to hurry.  As we approached the dock at Ebels, we could see their crew going over the other boats, fueling them up, spraying them down, going through every cabinet and storage area.  It’s quite an efficient operation.

It took us a little over an hour to get everything off the boat and stashed in the RV.  Since we were behind the three other boats, this put us at close to noon before we were on the road.  We said goodbye to our friends that we had lived closely with the last few days and rolled on out.

In all the busy-ness of the morning, I didn’t take a single picture.  The operation would have been worth a couple of them.

We weren’t sure how far we would get today.  The bit of a late start plus my getting about one hour of sleep last night slowed our progress. We stopped for a nap after driving for a couple hours as I was getting really sleepy. We stopped for the night at Bobcat Lake National Forest campground just inside Michigan’s upper peninsula.  Would have been nice to make a bit more progress but we’ll take what we can get.

In all, I have managed about ten hours of sleep in the last four days. Houseboats are fun and worth the adventure, but the bedrooms on this boat were not designed to allow airflow. With one tiny operable window, there isn’t much opportunity for air movement, even with a breeze outside.  And with the warm days that we started out with, those bedrooms got hot and stuffy.  The only way to cool them down was to run the air conditioner in the hallway with all the bedroom doors open.  The air conditioner required use of the generator, which was located right under our bed.  So with the generator roaring and the air conditioner blowing all night, it was quite a cacophony of noise which made sleep difficult.  

The alternative, however, was silence and sweltering. I’ve read that the average human dissipates about 150 watts of heat, so with two people in each tiny bedroom, it would be the equivalent of placing a 300-watt heater in a bedroom with no air exchange.

The result in either case, difficulty sleeping.  So, next time I end up on a houseboat like this, I will take a battery powered fan and place it in the window to pull in that cooler night air.

This was a good trip.  We had some good times with friends, saw one of the least visited National Parks, enjoyed some awesome paddling, shared some great meals.  Would I do this again?  Probably not.  It was enjoyable, the scenery was great, however, it is one of those been there, done that things that I don’t have to do again.  Voyageurs is one of those places that I would visit once.  

The houseboat is a great way to explore the park.  Probably the only other way is using the tent camping sites from a smaller boat. It was definitely worth it to bring the kayaks along as that allowed leisurely exploration of an area. 

One thing that Voyageurs has an abundance of is mosquitoes.  Probably the time of year is a factor and also the sudden warm weather, but they were always present in large numbers and the sound of slapping was a common element on this trip.  Bug spray was only marginally effective, if at all.  The best option was to stick to the open water where the area could be enjoyed relatively bug-free. The houseboat was screened pretty well, but eight people going in and out regularly resulted in almost as many mosquitoes *inside* as there were ​*outside*​.  One of the cleaning tasks this morning was to go around with a wet cloth and wipe up all the mosquito carcasses that were splattered on the walls and windows.  Many of them were bloody as well.

Unfortunately, the mosquito isn’t unique to Voyageurs.  Our campsite here at Bobcat Lake is also full of them and just opening the door to register for the campsite brought in several dozen of them that took the next hour or so to eliminate.  So even if there were trails to hike, we probably would not be hiking as the mosquitoes would carry us away.  I’m looking forward to leaving these large populations behind.