After that windy, wet, plan-changing, PFD-borrowing start, the trip could only get better, right? (You think I'm setting you up for a "wrong! then it got worse!", don't you? But I'm not! It really did get better. But maybe not right away. Not if you read "better" as "more benign environmental conditions". But we're *almost* through the "aw man!" part of the weather, we really are.)
See, after the deluge that proved that Elke's tent floor is waterproof (and prompted me to stick repair tape on the tiny hole in the bottom of mine in the case of future weather events...), the sun came out! Look at how lovely our second night at Warp Bay was! It was sunny! It was warm enough to wear shorts for people not named May! (May lived in her bathing suit this entire trip, I think.) And it didn't *seem* like it was windy at all anymore, VHF reports be damned. Except, of course, Elke did point out that there was an awful lot of white froth piling up on Devil's Warehouse Island. Warp Bay was very sheltered. My response to this was along the lines of oh poo, what's a little bit of waves! I was most definitely tired of hanging out at Warp Bay. It was time to goooooooooo.
So, in the morning of our third day, we went. The plan was to head north. We turned to Cape Gargantua, and turned north - and discovered some pretty confused water as soon as we were out of the shelter of Warp Bay. Undaunted, we paddled into the wind. Slightly daunted, I needed to do a fair bit of bracing in the channel leading to Devil's Chair. But, like Kevin said, there was a bit of shoreline effect happening - it was just reflection waves! No big deal! And to get away from the reflection waves, we would give the Devil's Chair a wide berth and head out a bit. And when I headed out, the waves were easily 2m. And sometimes breaking. Which was fine with me, as long as I was paddling into them, but I mentally recalled the shoreline as best I could from a previous trip and realized, what sheltered landings there were in the next few hours of paddling with such a headwind had lousy or no camping, and what good camping there was would also be a major surf landing. I didn't want to do that! So we rafted up and discussed. And rafting up in heavy seas means my stomach heaves up. I wanted a fast decision! And I wanted that decision to be turn around! Fortunately, Elke was with me - let's take advantage of following seas. Kevin was more reasonable, saying, do you want this behind you? And he had a good point, but my stomach had a more pressing point - and the tricky landings part was also true. Plus, I *knew* there was good camping with sheltered landing if we went south!
We turned. And had those huge waves behind us. I think the very first wave that grabbed me after we broke the raft hurtled me at well over 20 km/hr - I felt like I was flying as I inadvertently surfed that one. "If you're going too fast, backpaddle!", Kevin (easily the most accomplished paddler of the four of us) yelled. Uh, no, not trying anything new. Plus, it was kind of fun to go that fast. Like roller coasters are fun. And I happen to be of the speed=stability school of thought, and start to feel very unbalanced if I go slower than my slow pace in rough seas... This means, after a photo stop in the relative shelter of Devil's Warehouse, no matter how slowly I paddled to stay with the group, my skinny glass hull 
was still moving far too fast for Elke's speed-bumped plastic hull. Once, I did a U-turn to find the group again, and then I got ahead of them again, so I did another U-turn - I didn't like not being able to see them out of my peripheral vision - but the water was so big I managed to paddle right by them without seeing them (Elke apparently saw me, but I saw nobody). I convinced myself I saw them in a bay that offered a tiny bit of shelter north of Beattie Cove, and I paddled all the way into that bay, sure they must be hiding behind some rock because I'd *seen* them. They were not there. Oh shit. Now I had no idea where they were, and the seas were still huge, and I was alone. Great. I went looking...
I wasn't going to look for long - I was going to scour the water between where I was and Beattie Cove, which we'd talked about as a possible campsite, and then head into there and either find them or wait for them. Fortunately, I found them hanging out at Telegraph Rock, wondering what had happened to *me*. And they were not in the mood to chat with me, and took off for a different cove north of Beattie - and since nobody was talking to me, I had no idea what was going on, and couldn't say, but why don't we just go to the easy sandy landing? I 
was unhappy about pulling into a more exposed boulder beach. I didn't know if this was a lunch stop or a break or what, and just sat on the cobbles, figuring I would have an answer soon and worrying about launching in that cobbly mess (it wasn't that bad, I'm just a big wimp when it comes to tricky launches). And then, when we started taling to each other again, we made the decision to go to Beattie - and Kevin helped me do an old-lady launch by walking into the water and *holding* my boat while I leisurely climbed in and did up my sprayskirt.
I have, in the past, had mixed feelings about Beattie Cove. The first time I was there, I thought it was a magical place. The second time, I thought it was overused. I was glad to see that it had returned to magic - albeit somewhat buggy magic - on this trip. There was far less garbage in evidence on this trip (and what there was, we collected and burned). Beattie Cove, technically, has five or so sites - but there is one absolute premium site, and four good ones. We were the first ones there, so we took the premium one. Shortly after we arrived, an Outward Bound or similar group arrived, and took one of the less great sites - but as young people are won't to do, that didn't stop them 
from lounging on the rock right in front of our site, and doing so at the volume that teenagers are so fond of. The net result of this was that *I* enjoyed my beer more than I would otherwise have, since I drank it well in sight of people who would have to deal with miserable hiking food. I didn't go swimming till they vacated the area in front of our camp, but wow, was it a good swim. Lake Superior was balmy, I tell you.
And then, bla bla bla, good food (Kevin was cooking, as he did most nights on this trip - smartest move ever, combining food with Kevin) bla bla bla shooting star bla bla bla good sleep. It was just the usual perfect evening on a paddling trip, though buggy enough that Kevin , who had originally planned to sleep under the stars, set his tent up just as it was getting dark.