Friday, July 09, 2021 Up early again, today was our big exploration day. After a pot of coffee and some oatmeal we put together a small pack and started paddling towards the portage to Indiana Lake. Indiana was stunning, especially on a bright sunny day. The water clarity is incredible! We checked out the campsites and went for a quick dip before the journey to Wind Bay. A short muddy portage out of Indiana and we were paddling up the creek. It was VERY shallow and we had to cross over a couple beaver dams... but we made it to the island in Wind Bay around noon. From Wind Bay we headed north, reaching squirrel island about an hour later. Heading southwest from squirrel island we set our sights on Hoist bay of Basswood. Boat traffic wasn't too bad and we made it to the narrows in Hoist bay by mid afternoon. We found some excellent pike fishing here in the seemingly endless cabbage beds. Around 6pm after checking out the sunken machine we started up Good Creek. The first half of the creek from Hoist was brutal. We were often times paddling through inches of water, i'm sure it's even worse now with the extended drought. The beavers have a four foot high dam about half way up the creek, once we got up and over that it was smooth sailing all the way back to camp.