Day 3

23May

Set out from Big Island and paddled northward past Long Point to Tioga State Campground. Got some rest and a snack and then fought the wind to get up and around Bluff Point. High winds and swells makes staying on course a challenge! Luckily our spray cover that we borrowed works well - despite water breaking over us, we stayed high and dry!

Maneuvered up Outlet Bay and portaged to Forked Lake. Here we set sail as the wind was now at our back and flew down the lake to our next portage at Forked Lake State Park. Grabbed some lunch and water and then portaged on the cart down a dirt road for about a mile to our campsite for the night at a shelter on the Raquette River.

Blackflies are out in force today!

Weather: Mixed - hard rain, showers, sun - definitely warmer than yesterday!

Wildlife: 3 loons, 1 deer (walked across the road right in front of us on our portage!) and 1 ruby throated hummingbird (it kept trying to find nectar in our brightly colored med-kit...)

"There is magic in the feel of a paddle and the movement of a canoe, a magic compounded of distance, adventure, solitude, and peace. The way of a canoe is the way of the wilderness and of a freedom almost forgotten. It is an antidote to insecurity, the open door to waterways of ages past and a way of life with profound and abiding satisfactions. When a person is a part of their canoe, they are a part of all that canoes have ever known." ~ Sigurd Olson