It didn’t take too long to dry our tent flies the next morning, and after heating more breakfast burritos that we had packed in frozen, we broke down camp and prepared for our second day of paddling, with our goal of finding a good base camp location at the top of Friday Bay. The paddling and portaging from Nikki Lake to Crooked Lake was relatively uneventful as we even had a slight tailwind to help us paddle up the length of Friday Bay. I was making good time paddling the solo canoe, so once we reached Crooked Lake we decided that I would paddle ahead to locate an open camp site at the top of Friday Bay. Before I started paddling north we reviewed the map and had a plan as to which sites I would look to first and then we set up a meeting location. As I paddled up Crooked Lake I was enjoying the beauty around me and getting into the rhythm of efficiently paddling with the double blades. However, because of the warm weather it wasn’t long before I had depleted my two 32 ounce Nalgene water bottles and I resorted to the old “dip and sip” method of filling a water bottle in the middle of the lake. Staying hydrated continued to be a major theme on the traveling days of this trip.

The first site that I had hoped to secure was taken and since it was the farthest site up on Friday Bay I began my backtracking to check the availability of the alternative sites that we had discussed. Luckily it didn’t take long before I found a prime island site that turned out to be an ideal location for our group, with a good landing spot, a nice kitchen area and with plenty of room for two tents and our screen shelter. As I unloaded my two packs from my canoe I spied my buddies in their tandem and they quickly saw me and we were able to get all our gear unloaded and decide on the layout of our camp for the next four nights. One of the first tasks, after getting tents set up, was to filter a good supply of water for the three of us.

I had upgraded my filtration system from my old stand-by pump to a Platypus 6 liter gravity filter and that turned out to be one of the best gear acquisitions in years, as we quickly had a 5 gallon jug filled with fresh filtered water without anyone getting worn out trying to hand pump the water. It was such an equipment upgrade that I was literally mesmerized watching how smoothly the water flowed from the “dirty” container into the clean container. With a basecamp arrangement, coupled by the hot weather, I knew that we would easily stay hydrated during this trip.

After taking some time to get settled into camp and rest a bit from paddling, we pulled out the rods and reels and tackle and got ourselves rigged up for some afternoon fishing. Our explorations near our campsite showed good promise as we reeled in a good number of smallmouth bass and a few pike. I pulled ashore at one point and loaded my canoe with several nice pieces of beaver driftwood, which we sawed into a nice stack of firewood for our evening meal.

Despite the high temperatures during the first two days of our trip, the New York strip steaks which I had seasoned and froze before the trip were a perfect temperature for our evening meal, as the water bottles that they were packed around were still frozen. I had purchased an “Ice Mule” soft-sided cooler that did an excellent job of keeping our fresh food for days 1 and 2 cold and/or frozen until it was time to use them. So we ended our second day of our adventure, having found our base camp and having gotten a good start at fishing, with a fireside meal of grilled steaks and mashed potatoes. After savoring our meal and enjoying the tranquility of another night in the wilderness, we retired to our tents for a restful sleep without any storms.