As breakfast is being cooked camp is broken down, tents folded, sleeping bags rolled up, water container filled to maximum capacity because we are not quite sure where we will spend tonight, we will let the river decide our progress.
I know this is not a "cooking show", but remember that in post one about this trip I did mention that although we might end up looking and smelling like "barbarians" we would not eat like barbarians, at least not as long as I was in charge of cooking. By the way, did I mention that I am the only coffee drinker in the group. I don't know what is the matter with younger people, they just do not flock to the good bean unless it is loaded with hype from a particular coffee chain, ordering coffee with names that most people can't pronounce nor imagine, the end result being something other than coffee itself. Anyway, breakfast was potatoes, onion and sausage.
The boys then went off to clean the dishes and pans. I give Shamrock Campground an A+ for having not only clean shower and toilet facilities, but actually a indoor dishwashing station for primitive campers (not that the campers may be primitive, although some could be, but they camp in tents, lacking electricity, AC, running water and what is commonly known as indoor plumbing, all the things which people in RV's have to put up with), most campgrounds only have a faucet somewhere close to the "primitive" sites.
At 8:10 AM the canoes are loaded and we are on the river, which is kicking us really hard in the posterior, a lot of water must just have been released from the Berrien Springs Dam. We hardly have to paddle, but let the current carry us with a paddle needed from time to time steer. Fishing lines are out and we are "trolling" but in all likelyhood moving way too fast.
We are making such good time that at 10:20 AM we arrive for a break at where we expected to have lunch around 12:30 PM. We break at Jasper Dairy Road boat ramp, river left 42 deg. 00' 32.34 N and 86 deg. 23' 24.59" W. That is a distance of 9 miles in just 2 hours and 10 minutes = almost 4.5 miles an hour.
This progress creates the need for a logistics decision, since we are almost 1/2 of the way to our destination, we will press on and complete the trip today, assuming we can maintain this speed. We drank some water and had a snack or two, and the oldest member of the group, who shall remain nameless, left his canteen behind when we left at 10:40 AM. So to the individual who found the canteen, keep it as a memento of a canoe trip in which you did not participate, but keep in mind the canteen came all the way from Texas.
At times we can almost feel the change in the elevation or grade of the land by the sound of the river as it picks up speed or slows down on more level areas. We are moving so fast that our "navigator" seem not to be able to keep up with where we are, as he is flipping through the pages of the book with the "charts" / map of the river. He locates us as we enter into Horseshoe Bend. Coming out of this bend we decide on the inner or river left channel around the little island as it appears the water is moving faster there. Good decision, the water is fast, but the river bottom is really close and we scrape a couple times, being heavily loaded. The Old Town being smaller but carrying a similar load hits bottom hard and Jerry gets out to lighten the load and to push. Good thing he didn't push too far because as the narrow channel enters the main channel, the bottom of the river disappears suddenly and he would have walked right into a deep channel with strong water; this is at 42 deg. 01' 15.55 N / 86 deg. 23' 35.78 W.
At 12:45 PM we pass under the I94 bridge, a truck on the bridge honks and waves to us. A few minutes later we are at the boat ramp on river right where we stop for lunch, a lunch consisting of chuncks of salami sausage, hotdog buns and mustard but, alas, sans beer, some sacrifices must be made. The boys kept saying this lunch is the "wurst".
We have now covered 17.55 miles in only 4 hours 40 minutes. We can actually take a nap under the shade trees (it is in the constitution of the retired that naps should be taken at every opportunity) as there is only 7 miles to go. A telephone call is made to South Bend to let our wives know that we will be on the beach at Tiscornia Park about 4:30 PM or so, and the alternative take out will be the US Coast Guard Station on the Saint Joe side of the river, should the weather / waves not permit us to go out into Lake Michigan.
We are obviously hoping they will make the trip to pick us up, otherwise we will have to reverse course and paddle upstream back to South Bend.
A little after 2 PM we are on the way again, this time taking it easy. Paul is fishing from the Pelican and Thomas from the Old Town, they are having great fun, but also learning why it is called fishing rather than catching. We enter the channel in Benton Harbor / Saint Joseph and paddle leisurely through the area. Just after 4 PM my phone rings, I answer and the question posed by the caller is this; "Is that you coming under the RR bridge?". This is in fact good news because it means that our wives did in fact make the trip to pick us up. We go under the RR bridge and we can see all the girls (2 wives, 3 sisters / daugthers), they have the still camera and took all the photos here, remember the camera was not on our check list;
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| Going under the Railroad Bridge Saint Joseph / Benton Harbor, Michigan |
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| Into the channel between the breakwaters, staying well off of the walls. |
The small swells are only about 2' with small wavelets (This is the Ship Captain speaking now). About 1/2 of the way out the channel we meet a guy on a jetski who comes by and tells us that it is really rough outside and he couldn't make it. Obviously this guy, for all his good intentions, and I have different opinions as to what constitutes rough.
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| The Jet Ski guy with his dire warning. |
As we move out toward the ends of the breakwaters / jetties the swells get a bit bigger with a shorter period and we have to watch our paddling in order to keep the bow up and pointed out.
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| Almost out in the lake. No turning around now, we are committed. |
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| Now just past the jetties and on Lake Michigan. |
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| Making that all important turn towards the beach, otherwise Wisconsin is about 55 miles away across the lake. Jerry is digging in really hard to make the turn quick.  We are now headed for the beach with the waves behind us, and occasionally we surf down the face of a wave, it is rather fun, as long as one keeps an eye on the waves and a paddle really close to the water for steering. |
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| The beach is in sight. The journey is almost over, too bad! |
We arrive on the beach, one canoe slightly ahead of the other. The bow oar of the Pelican jumps out and runs up and disappear in the dunes. We later learned that he found the shade of an oak tree to be a most excellent remedy for "mal-de-mer" and he will recommend it to all that ask. We also learned that on a couple of occasions while surfing to the beach the Old Town did ship water over the bow.
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| In the suftline, startled beachgoers looking on. "Where did they come from", should we perhaps say South Bend or really stretch it and say Wisconsin?" |
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| On the beach, the journey over. |
Our navigator has determined that we have arrived at our destination, using his superior skills in determining position; we are on land, his mother and sisters are there, so we must have arrived at the proper place, which he proudly shows off on the photo below. Google Earth is telling us that we are at 42 deg. 06' 59.30" N and 86 deg. 29' 21.75 W.
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| We are here, I think I am pretty sure, I think! |
Please feel free to enjoy the video and do consider doing a trip on the Saint Joseph River. It is a nice river which can be handled by even the totally inexperienced as long as proper preparations are made and prudent caution is the order of the day.
The next adventure posting will begin in about two weeks.
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| The "Old Man" with the Pelican. |
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