Kayaking the Apostle Islands, August 2003

Day 3 - Kayak York Island to Sand Island and Back to York

The map for reference...

Eating breakfast in the morning of day 3. Our camp was right above the beautiful sandy beach of York.

The 3.5-mile paddle to Justice Bay on Sand Island seemed easy after yesterday's mileage. The beach there was the site of lunch that day as well as a few games of aerobie-frisbee.

From Justice Bay we made the 1.5-mile hike to the Sand Island Lighthouse, where we explored the rocky shore. From the top of lighthouse, we listened to the 20-something ranger attempt to yarn tales of shipwrecks of the distant past as though he was there. We needed to use our imagination a bit, but appreciated his energy.

On our hike back from the lighthouse, we came upon a fairly friendly deer. It was lucky this wasn't an episode of Survivor.

Sand Island is known for its sea caves. We spent some time after our hike kayaking into these caves. We left a little paint on the walls as we bounced around corners, navigating inside the tight surroundings of the caves.

On our way back to York, we detoured out into the open water of Superior to find a shipwreck that was marked on one of our maps. We found the wreck (the bouy helped) and ended up spending 30 or 40 minutes over the site, paddling up-wind and letting the light breeze take us over the sunken ship at just the right angle so we could see throught the surface glare the 20 feet down to the Sevona, which sunk in 1905. Unfortunately (well, not as unfortunate as for the 7 of 24 crew who lost their lives here a century ago), none of us had a good underwater camera to capture it, and the sun didn't cooperate by adequately lighting the wreck for Denise's waterproof-disposable.

>>>>>> Go to Day 4: York Island to Little Sand Bay to Home >>>>>>

[Apostle Islands 2003 Trip Page] [Matt & Julie's Homepage]

Eating breakfast in the morning of day 3. Our camp was right above the beautiful sandy beach of York.
The 3.5-mile paddle to Justice Bay on Sand Island seemed easy after yesterday's mileage. The beach there was the site of lunch that day as well as a few games of aerobie-frisbee.
From Justice Bay we made the 1.5-mile hike to the Sand Island Lighthouse, where we explored the rocky shore. From the top of lighthouse, we listened to the 20-something ranger attempt to yarn tales of shipwrecks of the distant past as though he was there. We needed to use our imagination a bit, but appreciated his energy.
On our hike back from the lighthouse, we came upon a fairly friendly deer. It was lucky this wasn't an episode of Survivor.
Sand Island is known for its sea caves. We spent some time after our hike kayaking into these caves. We left a little paint on the walls as we bounced around corners, navigating inside the tight surroundings of the caves.