BWCAW - Day Three (August 27, 2013)

We wanted to get an early start so we just had energy bars and fruit sticks for breakfast, which meant no dishes to wash.  We tore down camp, repacked out packs (food pack was lighter) and loaded the canoe.  For some reason we were unable to get the three big ones side by side like before when we started so we put them two by two.  We rowed across the lake, found the portage and unloaded the canoe.  Now for our big 216 rod portage.  About two-thirds of the way we came to the beaver dam.  we needed to load up the canoe again and row across a small section of water.  Getting the canoe out deep enough to load was quite the challenge as the mud was quite thick.  Getting out at the other side was a challenge too.  Since I was in the front is was me who has to get out first and pull the canoe in some.  There was a small rock that I stepped on and started to pull the canoe forward.  It was there that I started losing my balance and not wanting to land in the thick mud I propelled myself backwards and fell on my back on a drier portion of grassy, reedy area.  Now the trick was to get everything and everyone out of the canoe.  DB and BH got out on the other side of the canoe which was also quite muddy.  Somehow DB ended up in mud up to her ankles which was very hard to get out of.  We then portaged the last third of the way to Shell Lake.  We checked out what were considered the prime camp sites first, but they were taken.  Found one that looked pretty good, but someone wanted to go on and see if there was a better one.  It was decided to leave some of our stuff there incase something better was not found, but since nothing was we headed back to the first site and unloaded.  It was early afternoon and we had not eaten lunch yet.  By the time DB started the camp stove the fire pit was bathed in full sun and very hot.  We decided that this may be a good time to put up the tarp.  It was very hard as all the trees were quite far apart.  We barely made it with the 50 feet of rope we had.  Lunch of scrambled eggs (using the rest of the fresh eggs) and Spam was made and the dishes washed.  Then we had the afternoon to enjoy.  We all went out for a swim...or more like a bob.  Whenever anyone came by we would ask where they had come from and they all said Little Indian Sioux!  We had originally planned to do that much too, but we got too worn out.  It was harder than we had expected.  We then went out to get water and went by a camp with two guys.  They told us about a wonderful sandy beach on Heritage Lake, all we had to do was leave our canoe and walk the portage and we would come out on the sandy beach.  We decided to stay at that camp site an extra day so we could go to the sandy beach and swim.  After a supper of Salmon and spinach linguini we started a fire hoping that would keep the mosquitoes down and have some hot cocoa (no, it hadn't suddenly gotten cold) but it didn't keep them down so we quickly cleaned up and went into our tents.