With camp packed up early and a good breakfast of oatmeal and hot cocoa inside us, we hit the water towards Red Rock by 7:00am. One would think it should be fairly easy to get from Gold Island to the portage to Red Rock, but we somehow got turned around in one of the last bays before the portage. The wind was already fairly strong, but with it coming out of the southwest, it wasn't a huge issue now that we were down in the more protected bays. After a quick nav check and some improved map reading skills, we found the right passage to the portage and were quickly on our way to Red Rock Lake. When we hit the other side, we were greeted with 25-35 mph gusts straight into the portage, and a view as far as we could see of whitecapped water.

Picking our way through the shallow bay near the portage while headed straight into the wind, we could see that the first 2 sites to the west were occupied. We headed SSE after passing the narrows while swells of water battered the right side of our canoe, always keeping close to shore in case we dumped. We were slowly moving towards an empty looking site (#410) when another canoe, riding the waves and moving infinitely faster than us came out of the center part of the lake and started heading towards the site as well. We did not want to have to fight the waves where they had just come from, and we were ecstatic when we noticed they were not in a loaded canoe. They paddled past the site and into the bay to the south, which meant we had found our home for the next couple of days.

Once again, we had lucked into a very nice campsite, but with the wind coming the direction it was, the landing was very tricky and the fire grate was wide open to the wind. We stayed in camp the rest of the day and finally got back out to fish around 7:00pm when the winds had died down. Jaden quickly nailed his first two fish of the trip- a 19" and a 20" smallmouth within just a few casts of each other. I managed to catch a couple smaller bass, but his two fish turned out to be the best fish of the trip. We stayed on the water until dark and finished the day with a campfire until 10:30, after which we did some stargazing from an exposed rocky area in camp. I pointed out several constellations while we watched the occasional passing satellite and caught quick glimpses of shooting stars. Jaden told me later that was the first time he had ever done that, and while he always thought star gazing would be "kind of lame", this time is was "pretty cool Dad". Ah, sweet victory!