Lake Superior Circle Tour Day 4 - Bayfield to Grand Marais

This is the day of the Apostle Islands cruise and we have more unique rocks to look forward to.

Woke up to a beautiful morning in Bayfield with birds chirping outside.  I even caught a few of the birds on camera, including a yellow warbler and an early robin that caught and lost a worm.  Although we have a boat to catch, we did have some time to walk around town a bit.

Golden hour outside the motel

Yellow warbler

Robin lost its worm!

Sculpture by local artist - there were quite a few displayed out the house

There are ferries to most of the Apostle Islands, the largest of which is Madeline Island, the spiritual center of the Chippewa.  It now has a large state park.

While it looked like a sunny day on shore, it was cold and windy by the time we got on the upper deck of the catamaran.  Most people didn't hang around the upper deck for long, it must be more than 10 degrees warmer in the cabin!  

Some of the islands are state parks and volunteers are allowed to stay on in settlements like this one in return for work. The National Parks Service will even pay volunteers $3 per 8 hour day worked but they have to provide their own food and supplies.  In return they can put this down as work experience on their resume for the future. - an interesting exchange.

Some of the more interesting rock formations on the islands - this one looks like a ship

I was lucky to catch two bald eagles fighting off Hermit Island but not alert enough to extend my lens so these were all shot at a mere 100mm, not enough to get a sharp image but enough to tell a story.  That is a problem with always doing my birding with a prime lens that doesn't need to be extended!  Habits die hard. You can also see the impressive wing span of the eagles.

Encounter

Entanglement

Eviction 

Escape

    

Devil's Island was the most interesting of the islands with a lighthouse and sandstone caves all around its rim.

Raspberry Island with its lighthouse which is actually a house!

The cruise was a good two and a half hours long.  We got off the boat and headed off to lunch before hitting the road again.  We had four stops on the way to Grand Marais, our overnight stop before the U.S. Canada border.   We drove through Duluth and it was the first time we saw factories and industrial buildings along the lake shore.  

Duluth from the highway

It turned out that we missed three of the stops in Minnesota because of rain.  We didn't make it to Gooseberry Falls, Split Rock, and Palisade Head (not even for a quick photo because it required clambering over wet rocks).  We did see Stoney Point and the fishing shack that used to be used by commercial fishermen. 

Stoney Point

Fishing shack apparently much photographed under various conditions, sunrise, golden hour, snow, stormy weather, etc,  In this case, it's just dramatic clouds...

In spite of the rain on the road, we made it to Artists' Point in Grand Marais for the golden hour even though the sun barely made it out for a few minutes.  It was nevertheless a good omen for the rest of the trip - no more rain!