(The Isle Royale blathering begins here)
And then! It was sunny! And still windy, and cold, but sunny, and most of all, we were thoroughly tired of West Caribou Island (there is only so much to explore on a small island), so we got going by 8 a.m. CDT / 9 a.m. EDT (we never did figure out what we were *supposed* to be on. Grand Portage is in Central. Isle Royale is in Eastern. The ferry runs on Central. Thunder Bay, due north, operates on Eastern...). And the worst part of the rough water was right at the beginning, where we had to get past some huge rollers which hit us broadside until we rounded Saginaw Point. My loaded boat feels totally stable, and I figured I shouldn't get *too* far away from Hart and Ray at this point, so I zigzagged through the rough water, practicing doing sharp turns with waves broadside. As long as I was paddling, I was ok (because paddling = bracing), but I didn't want to stay still. So, despite the zigzags, I lost Ray and Hart (Hart is much better at paddling slowly in big stuff, and he and Ray paddled together throughout this trip). I waited on the other side of the point. There was tailwind. I drifted. It seemed like a long time - I got very cold. When I saw the entrance to Chippewa Harbor on my right, I realized I was moving pretty quickly even without paddling, and turned my boat back into the wind to build up some heat paddling back to Saginaw Point. There, I discovered Hart and Ray - Ray was consulting the map. Hart was having a smoke. We drifted.
We took a short break in Chippewa Harbor. I was still very chilled, so quickly took off exploring the campsites - primarily because they were uphill from the dock, and thus conducive to raising my body temperature. Also, because the spot was really pretty. And maybe it took longer than it was supposed to, but that could be because I discovered wild strawberries near the tent pads (in Isle Royale NP, you get the shaft 
if you use the tent pads - the shelters are invariably in prettier locations, and the tent pads off in the buggy woods). Fortunately for me, Hart was waiting (Ray had already launched) when I wandered back, but I think that may have had something to do with the fact that he was out of drinking water and I'd announced that I had four liters in my boat if anyone wanted any...
After Chippewa Harbor, with a nice tailwind and no big water, I returned to my pretending I was on a solo trip paddling style, and did my own thing. There were a lot of strange debris floating in the water - it felt like 
just after a storm. I saw some strange things - a golf ball, water bottles, band-aids... I concluded that the boat the stuff had washed off from was Canadian, since all the labels were in English and French. And this suspicion was confirmed shortly after that, when I saw a Canadian flag floating in the water - attached to the kind of flagpole you would find on a boat. I almost dumped myself trying to get 
the pole under my decklines (it was too long for my boat to hold anywhere without interfering. I ended up settling on dragging the end off the stern - I already had my rudder down due to tailwind, so I could at least compensate).
This part of the shoreline was pretty, but without a lot of good landing spots for the first stretch. Toward Malone Bay, there were more - I poked into Blueberry Cove, and I looked at Greenstone Beach - but I didn't get out. I later learned that Hart and Ray, who were far behind me, stopped for lunch and swimming (minus bathing suits! no wonder they were so eager to get the girl to do her own thing!) in one of these, but I puttered my way to Malone Bay without landing.
As soon as you get to the islands east of Malone Bay, you are in protected, shallow water - and it feels very un-Superior like, more like on an inland lake. It was pretty. And the Malone Bay campsite is pretty too - the dock is nowhere near the campground, and there is a nice pebble beach for kayakers to land on. I love pebble beaches. I wanted to set my tent up on the pebble beach, but there are *rules* in this park. And these rules required that you set your tent up only on designated tent pads. Which are off in the bush. There is no camping near the five or so 
wonderfully situated near the shoreline shelters. And there is another rule that you may only use a shelter if you intend to sleep in it. And I know all of this 
because a young and very friendly ranger came for a chat while I sat next to my boat on the beach. He did agree to relax the rules enough to allow one compromise: not *all* of us would have to sleep in the shelter, we could *also* set up tents on the designated pads. So I declared myself willing to shelter-sleep when Ray and Hart showed up later, and despite the mosquito population in the shelter, this was nice. I could see the moon all night (except when I put my towel on the railing running along the screen because "oooh pretty" had turned to "how annoying" already).
Malone Bay is connected to the Isle Royale hiking network, and the hiking trail from here goes to Siskiwit Lake - and *I* am not prepared to swim in Superior. Ray declares it makes one feel like a new man. I have no desire to be made a man of. Thus, I happily trudged along the trail to the lake for a swim, and a soak in the jacuzzi made by the rapids. It wasn't balmy, but it was bearable. Hart wanted a picture of himself in the jacuzzi, and I was the only one who had brought a camera for this portion for the adventure,
and it took me a while to focus. I think the smile was starting to get strained on Hart's face by the time I finished fiddling. It's hard to smile with blue lips.
There you go: clean (well, I swam. As clean as I get on paddling trips), warm, sleeping in luxurious accommodations. So ended the first real paddling day of this trip...