Outrunning the storm!

Well, when we got to Vera Lake, the lightning was getting closer and the winds were getting stronger. We fought our way around the first little peninsula sticking into the lake. The group from the portage between Kekekabic and Pickle Lakes had shown us where the campsites were on Vera, so we followed the shore around that peninsula, attempting to snag the campsite there. It was taken already!

So, we spotted a campsite on the north shore of the lake. We turned to head for it when the winds picked up to around 35-40 mph directly against us. Whitecaps were breaking north-south on Vera Lake, and as you can tell, it's not a very wide lake in that direction! Tracy and I paddled furiously, but the wind was actually pushing us away from the northern shore. We doubled our efforts and slowly began to inch our way toward the campsite. Lightning was striking within 5 miles of by now, and we sure didn't want to be caught out in the middle of a lake on a canoe during lightning strikes. Using all the energy we had, we pushed our way to the northern shore, and once we got close to shore, the lake settled down a little and let us cruise in. We hurried to set up camp once we made it to shore, wanting to protect things from the imminent downpour.

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