It rained very hard during the night. Just before daylight I awoke feeling wet on one elbow. I found the flashlight and turned it on. There was LOTS of water in the tent, mostly around the head of my sleeping pad and the tent door. I was shocked and a little ticked off. What had happened? I cussed myself for not stashing all my loose stuff the night before and exposing it to the wet, but what had happened with the tent?

A look at the ceiling showed that apparently the hard rain had caused the fly to sag down into the tent roof and water just “wicked” through. On the floor, apparently so much water got between the outside ground cloth and the tent floor that my weight forced it to ooze in under the pad.*

Wasting no time, I sat on the pad and stuffed the bag into a dry sack. Then I found the most dry clothes and stuffed them into another. I took off my Wickers bottoms and stuffed them in the dry bag too. All the wet gear I just put together in another bag. I put on my rain jacket and got of the tent and headed for the tarp.

It was raining very little now and it was getting light. There appeared to be no breeze to speak of and the lake appeared to be almost calm. I found the snack jar, grabbed a breakfast bar and the water bottle and had a quick “breakfast” while at the same time getting stuff organized for packing under the tarp.

It took about 45 minutes to get everything together, sorted and packed into my two packs. I took down the old Walrus and fly and packed it up soaking wet. Before packing the snacks I stuffed a couple snack bars in one jacket pocket and a breakfast bar and a small bag of peanuts into the other. I loaded everything into the canoe, added some rocks in the front for extra ballast and shoved off.

The night before I had told myself that if the wind were from the north (as NOAA was predicting then) I should stay on the north shore of Cirrus and head west sheltered. So what did I do, with just a little northeast breeze blowing now? I headed directly across the lake to the south shore that I was more familiar with. Bad move!

About midway across, the breeze began to gust and slack back down, each time seemingly getting stronger overall. I made the south shore easily, but now was forced to deal with a diagonal tail wind that tried to push my rear to the left with every gust. The gusts became more frequent and stronger as I paddled so I had to work hard to keep straight and discover the best way to stroke/steer/rudder and keep forward progress without getting blown off course.

“Long story short” as they say, I eventually made it into the bend of the far west end of Cirrus and the wind became more of a dead on tailwind. There were whitecaps now out in the main channel. I’m not sure how long it took me to reach portage to the no-name lake but I battled hard all the way. I had a little trouble finding the portage take-out (as others have indicated is common) but when I did I beached the canoe and thankfully took some deep breaths and fished out some snack food.

The rest of the story is really uneventful. I had to be very cautious on the slippery rock faces here, but other than that it was okay. When I took off my PDF to portage the canoe across I felt somewhat cold without it and on the walk back for the second load I knew that I was soaked to the bone and needed to get back to the Beaverhouse put-in and get warm. I paddled across the little lake to the take-out and when I hit the nice grassy shore there I really felt like I had it made.

Now all I had to do was get up the first 100 yards of this half-mile portage and it would be level and then downhill from there! The canoe felt a little heavy on the other portage, so I carried paddles, PDF, and seat cushion “loose” with the big pack on my back. I was getting so beat I really struggled to get in ON my back. The carry with the pack went well as I really leaned into every step. I dropped everything at Beaverhouse, grabbed the bag of peanuts and ate them with some Cirrus water on the way back for the second load.

After almost dropping it and bruising my right forearm in the process, I started off with the canoe. I was really getting tired. The ascent at the start weakened my legs a little, so I took slow steps along the level area until they recovered enough to continue at a normal rate. When I hit the top of the downhill stretch I could have shouted for joy, but I still had one little problem.

About twenty yards from the Beaverhouse shore there is a steep drop that’s about a canoe length and one-half. When I got to that point I stopped and looked at it, and (wisely, I think) just shrugged the canoe off my shoulders and lowered in down the drop like it was floating on water. I was done! (Well almost.) I drank the rest of my water, loaded up the canoed and pushed off.

When I came out of the mouth of the little cove the north wind tried to blow me back the way I’d come. I struggled for about twenty minutes or so just to get up into the “creek” that holds the put-in. When I reached the landing area the little pool was probably a foot higher than when I’d left and water was tumbling down from upstream where before there had just been a trickle.

At the Beaverhouse parking lot I met another solo paddler (I did not get his name) who had just taken out. We talked for a little and he offered to help me with my second load, but I declined. When I finally got everything up to the van and began loading up I started to shiver a little, and not from the excitement. It was still spitting rain when I got the canoe tied on top and was finally able to get in the van and change into some dry clothes. Once changed and underway, I felt almost 100%.

It was exactly noon when I headed out in search of a bacon cheeseburger!

*The Walrus 2-man tent that had been absolutely bombproof when new, had been hanging in a closet upstairs for several years. I got it out and set it up in the backyard, but did not test its water resistance or do any waterproofing or seam-sealing. For some reason, it never occurred to me that the tent might not be what it used to be. I will not make this mistake again!