Ah, the pleasures of a drought. No lawn to mow, no weeds to pull, no guilt to impede. I had made a deal with my wife. When the spring chores were done, I would venture out on Lake Erie for a weekend.

Friday afternoon, I left Mary Ann and took off for the Lake Erie islands with Dave. He has a sea kayak and I, a rowboat. Not the clunky aluminium kind meant to use oars only when the motor gives out, but the real thing. It is 15' long, with 8' spoon bladed oars that can push the boat at 4-5 knots in calm waters, about the speed of a good centerboard sailboat. The search for this rowboat was harder than I had anticipated. There are lots of fine rowing boats to be found, but the boats are heavy enough to require a trailer. Bolger designed a rowboat of 35lbs on which you had to be careful where you stepped, but concluded that it would be more sensible to build the boat conventionally and work out a dolly to transport it to the shoreline. I managed to buy such a boat. I had never rowed anything but an aluminium clunker before and was astonished at the power that 8' oars could deliver in even a novice's hands.

With the rowboat I learnt the joys my little kids had seeking out the quiet backwaters of local rivers and lakes, finding a frog or smakie swimming nearby and having a driftwood picnic on little scraps of tucked away beaches. We saw migrating waterfowl in the fall and rowed through the Lake Erie ice on an unusual calm day in February. I also learned about the seaworthiness of the boat.

Dave and I had a two hour practice session along the shore of Lake Erie in 20+ knot winds and steep, breaking 4-5 ' waves. The boat gracefully lifted to each crest, neither broaching nor digging in its bow. I took only a few cups full of water on board and was immensely proud when we landed. To capsize the boat, I had to ask Dave to wade in and provide an extra push from behind the boat to turn it over. Once over, however, there was no way to right it without a firm grip on land.

We left East Harbour State Park on a Friday afternoon and headed for Kelly's Island State Park on the far north side of the island, some 8 sea miles away and into a breeze that thankfully got milder. We rounded the west side of the island past the old Kellstone dock from which quarried rock for the cities of Cleveland and Chicago were shipped in earlier times and finally scraped bottom at the gravelly beach by the campground.

The next morning, a following wind took us 6 miles to uninhabited Middle Island, just across the Canadian border. Uninhabited seemed strange, until we got close enough to try to inhabit it ourselves. About 2000 seagulls rose from the rocks and limestone ledges and cam swirling and squawking towards us, preceded by the most foul smell an island has ever emitted. We were driven off the only beachable portion and forced to seek refuge by some ledges, fending the boat off with our feet.

Through the binoculars we could clearly see Pelee Island, 4 miles away to the north, but we couldn't see Fish Point, supposedly sticking over a mile out into the Lake. All we saw was a line of breakwater sized rocks and a faint line of sand appearing concave to us wrapping around the far shore. Had the point disappeared under high Lake levels? They had now dropped below normal. Were those rocks placed around the sandbar to protect it? We headed for the rocks, reflecting the bright sunlight, 3 miles away.

Facing backwards while rowing, I failed to look at our target. A half mile from the breakwater rocks, I turned around and, in doing so, spotted a long low line of sand along side us. It was the faint line of sand we had seen that had fooled us and we had been rowing alongside the sandbar, about 1000 yards offshore for nearly half an hour. Paddling over, Dave dragged his kayak up over the sand, but we had to use the inflatable boat roller to get my rowboat, laden with camping gear, high and dry. It was the queerest place I've ever seen on Lake Erie. Just a long low sandbar, stretching to the horizon in one direction and in the other, a forest with a trail leading to the town of Pelee. Along the western shore, there were numerous poles spaced 40' apart with nets strung between them.

We walked to the town, signed in with Canadian customs and reserved a table for dinner before walking the 4 miles back to the boats, taking a careful swim well away from the dangerous Point land and then trekked back to town. From the restaurant placemat, with a map on it, we were able to pick out East Sister Island and Hen Island and various tiny humps of blue which must have been the Chicken Rocks and shoals. Back at base, we dragged both boats into the bushes, left the tent in the boats and lay out in our ground pads and bags watching the myriad Hen and Chicken Islands on the Canadian side and then the Bass Islands on the American side recede into the darkness. Dave and I swapped stories until we fell asleep.

A 15 knot headwind greeted us from the southwest. We packed up at 6 am and left shortly thereafter. Easier said than done. The wind shift made a lee shore by our boats. Rolling my boat in, it got caught in the rising surf and a wave broke over the bow, slightly flooding it and setting some gear awash. Dave's sea kayak also caught a wave before he could snap down his spray skirt. We bailed and pumped dry just offshore. A hard row for 2 hours took us in the lee of Middle Island on its east shore and we found a resting place away from the stench of the seagulls, again on a limestone ledge. It had taken us twice as long to make the trip against the wind as it had with the wind the day before. After resting we set off for Kelley's. Half the boaters on Lake Erie must have been within a half mile of its north west corner, all fishing. We got some complimentary waves and one 'you must be crazy' from a nubile blond in a large powerboat. I wasn't insulted and waved back with a big smile. The boat took advantage of this inattention, and aided by the wind, turned broadside long enough to slosh some water onboard. Rowing requires a serious demeanor!

Our last sanctuary was on the lee, or east side of Kelley's before the anticipated onslaught dead into the wind to East Harbor. The flat limestone ledges were partly awash and slimy with seaweed. Dave showed me a trick by timing the surge of the waves to lift the boats onto the upper ledges using the slime as lubricant. We took our time, opening up charts, snacks and water bottles which were warm by then. We tried every excuse we could think of to delay our departure and it was early afternoon before we decided to grit out teeth and set out. Amazingly the wind had died and then I discovered that there were worse things than headwinds…no wind. No wind and lots of powerboat wakes. We were sloshed and bounced all over the hot, windless, miserable 3 mile passage to the Marblehead peninsula. At Marblehead we stopped at Lakeside, an old Methodist summer community of modest homes and equally modest rents, with almost no auto traffic inside their gates. I left Dave with the boats by the rocks and clambered over the bank up to land and returned with two cold soft drinks gripped desperately in my hands - relief at last.

We arrived back by East Harbour State Park by 4 pm, having covered 20 miles. If we had had much further to go, I would have been tempted to drop anchor and sleep out on the Lake in the boat. I had never gone out on the Lake so far before. The journey proved that small canoe sized craft could navigate the Great Lakes, given moderate weather and a fair amount of caution. Both of our overnight stops had had ferry services we could have used if the weather turned against us. Dave's kayak is decked and to fill in my open rowboat, I duct taped together sheets of styrofoam and filled the entire triangular shaped bow and stern sections and lashed the entire concoction down. The boat's weight, about 120 lbs loaded with camping gear, allowed us to haul it up on sandbars, smooth rock ledges and gravel bars with the aid of an inflatable roller, keeping it out of harm's way.

We both carried sea anchors to hold the boat's head to the sea and Dave used his with success for the few minutes it took to pump his craft dry after the wet Pelee Island launch. We both had weather radios with us which we consulted for the day's forecast and Dave had flares in case of the worst.

Several people who learned of our trip thought we were taking a very great risk. Our opinion is that Lake Erie while certainly worthy of significant respect need not be feared, at least not to such a degree as to require limiting one's trips to the near shoreline. Now that I've had a good trip, I can go home, enjoy my family again and take advantage of the fine dry weather to plant my cactus.