When morning finally came around, there was heavy steady rain but thankfully the worst of it seemed to be over. Small gusts persisted but after that night, it seemed minor in comparison. Once the wind had calmed somewhat, I made the climb from the hammock and found everyone still sleeping. I surveyed the damage and thankfully we looked to have made out fairly well. Dan Cooke’s tarp still hung as intended, although drooping heavy to the ground with collected rainwater as we had removed the center pole support prior to turning in the night before. I quickly found our Helinox and REI chairs scattered in some heavy brush on the edge of camp. I was honestly impressed that they managed to stay in the general vicinity of camp. With their little weight, I figured they would have made the perfect sail all the way across the lake. We should have been a little more diligent about buttoning up camp at bedtime. I picked up my life jacket and found a sizable spider had taken refuge beneath it.

A pot of coffee from the French press got the morning started off right as Grant and Davis began to emerge. We traded stories of each our struggles to sleep through the night. Davis unfortunately had a somewhat older tent, and he discovered in the downpour some rainwater had made it into his sleeping quarters. I can't imagine being wet through the barrage of the night before. Breakfast burritos were on the menu for the morning. After some fresh scrambled eggs, cheese, precooked bacon, and just add water salsa, I would say that the result was one of my favorite meals of the trip.

Mid-morning as the rain and clouds began to thin, Grant took a canoe out for some fishing. Davis grabbed a rod and decided to try his luck from shore. I decided to catch up on some reading and lounge around camp. I was surprised everyone wasn't more exhausted given the previous night. Around lunchtime, we were surprised that Grant still had yet to return. Several hours later, we saw his boat slowly making his way down the shoreline. Davis and I hoped to hear about a productive day of fishing. Instead, we learned the wind had picked up and marooned Grant to a cove on the Far East side of the lake, apparently one with a complete absence of hungry fish. The wind had become too much to handle and Grant had stayed put for hours looking for a window to exit.

After we hung out in camp a bit, I decided to try my luck with the rod and reel. We decided to go fish as a group and Davis and Grant hopped in the Minnesota II hoping to make another fish dinner happen. Unfortunately, we had a repeat performance of Grant’s morning excursion. The winds picked up once again and the off and on white caps quickly made fishing a difficult task. As we had suspected the prior day, any site we came across on Ima was occupied. Most campers seemed content to stay put for the day and see if the weather would calm. No one else seemed to be out on the lake instead choosing to weather the winds in camp.

We found ourselves pushed into a cove on the eastern side of Ima where the waves were calmer (for Grant’s sake, thankfully not the cove he found himself trapped prior). We tied the canoes to one of the shorelines and climbed a steep embankment, intent on shore fishing given the winds which seemed to be picking up.

Despite several hours of jigging from the cliffs and simple cast and retrieve, none of us had much luck. Grant managed to snag his line on some rocks about fifteen to twenty yards from the shore. He shed his life jacket and waded out to the offending rock and took a quick dive under to save the lure. Success! That however was about all we caught.

The winds still hadn’t subsided, and we reluctantly decided it was getting too late to wait things out. It took a few attempts just to get the canoe pointed in the right direction. Just when you thought you had a good heading, a gust would catch the side of the boat like a sail and you’d give up significant progress. We tried to stay close to shore until there was a small break in the gusts, allowing us to straight line it across the large lake. Once back, we all spread out around the fire pit and caught our breath. Ironically it seemed the wind seemed to calm somewhat once we got settled.

Dinner consisted of shrimp fried rice. One question going into the trip was how accurate serving sizes would be from Campchow and Packitgourmet. I figured three large guys could do a few servings apiece. I was way off. One serving was more than enough food and at the end of the night, we found ourselves digging holes away from camp to bury the extra food. Not ideal. I had also ordered multiple small packets of Texas Pete’s hot sauce. I know I packed it and spent entirely too long going through the entire blue barrel several times with no luck. I’m convinced the TSA took it for their own lunches. At publication time for this report, the hot sauce is still MIA. We capped off the evening with another nightcap of bourbon which was quickly becoming one of our favorite daily rituals. The weather remained slightly overcast but it made for a beautiful sunset. Everyone was in bed before 9:00 pm, absolutely exhausted. I pulled up a book on the Kindle, Ready Player One by Earnst Cline. Growing up in the ‘80s, it’s a personal favorite, although the movie did not do it justice in my opinion. The mosquito swarm hit about 9:30, but it didn’t keep us up for long.

~Thomas Lake