Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Aug 29 – To Apostle Island National Seashore

Today we made the move to our farthest western point on this trip. We are now at the campground at the Living Waters Casino near Bayfield, Wisconsin to visit the Apostle Islands National Seashore.


The casino is definitely better looking than the last one.

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The campground is also a step huge up from the one at Baraga but it should be for $40 a night.

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Great view. This sites are quite close together but so far we haven’t had anybody on either side of us. Water and electric but no sewer. There is WIFI over at the casino and I can just barely connect with our directional antenna.

This is the only campground in the area that I felt comfortable coming to, given our size. They have two campgrounds, one of which is first come first serve. Back when I was planning the trip I had assumed that they both were. Looking again last week I realized that I could reserve in this one. I had hoped to stay for 4 night but I forgot that this weekend is Labour Day so I could only get 3. I am not sure yet what we will do on Friday.

Last week I had booked an evening cruise of the islands for Thursday because its weather looked the best. When we left Wakefield this morning  it was rather grey and foggy. When we got here we had clear blue skies so I called the cruise company to change the date to this evening. It sure made for a long day but I am glad we made the change. The skies stayed clear and the lake was flat calm with no wind at all.

The cruise is 3 1/2 hours long and is called the Evening Grand Tour. It leaves at 4:30 this time of year. Seating is first come first serve and there is only limited seating (strictly enforced) on the top deck so people start lining up at around 3:30.

We walked around town a bit before heading to the wharf. An interesting concept for a garden.

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We really wanted to be on the top deck so we got there early and were about the third group.

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Here is our trip and the highlights marked.

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Away we go.

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We could see the casino and the campground as we went by.

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The highlight of the trip is the sea caves at the very end of the loop. Up until then the captain kept up a running commentary about all the islands we passed but there were only a few formations of any interest.

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An eagle watched us go by.

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Our first pause was an old fish camp.

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Unfortunately they are restoring a building so there were yellow buckets everywhere.

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Back at you.

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As I said it was flat calm.

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When we finally arrived at Devil’s Island and the caves, it turns out that the most interesting ones are on the north shore so they get very little sun. It was especially hard to get any good pictures with the sun as low as it was.

The captain did a lot of slow passes back and forth very close to the caves.

This is the best I could do.

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There is a lighthouse on the point.

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There are volunteers that stay on the island to give tours of the lighthouse for people that can get here by boat. They stay for 5 day shifts. During their off time they get to kayak. Tough job.

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As we rounded the corner to the west side the light got much better. I am going to include a lot of pictures. The formations were just so interesting. For a while I had to remind myself to stop taking pictures and to just look.

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Sadly we moved on.

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The next pause was the Raspberry Point Lighthouse. It is another one that, if you can get yourself there, you can get a tour from the resident ranger.

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He was out on the balcony.

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Exit stage left, down through a small door.

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One side of the building was for the keeper and other was for his assistant.

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On the way back it got quite a bit cooler as the sun went down.

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And back to town around 8:00.

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I will say that the caves were a real treat but the journey there and back was somewhat long and boring. At least the weather was great.

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