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The wind came up from the NW last night and also brought a few rain showers, but when we got up the skies were clearing. Everyone left at 0800 with Red Sky and Swan planning to head to Madeline Island and John and I to Black River. When we reached the open waters of the lake we found 4-5 foot seas left over from last night’s wind and 12-15 knot winds from the WNW. Since we were headed just a little south of west we could only use the main which did serve to give us some drive and stabilize the boat in the seas. The other boats were having a much rougher time as their course to Madeline put them right into the seas. Several hours later, Red Sky decided it was not worth banging all the way to Madeline and turned south to head to Black River with us. As our day continued down this desolate coast the wind lightened somewhat but kept heading us as we made every course change to slowly head southwest as the shore curved away in that direction. Once again we were fighting an adverse current. We were paralleling the Porcupine Mountains and we first saw a ski resort on the north face and as we neared Black River we saw an enormous ski jump towering above one mountain peak. We subsequently learned this is supposed to be the highest ski jump in North America.
We arrived at Black River just after 1400 to find there was room at the dock for both of us in this tiny little, picturesque harbor. Both crews had eaten lunch while underway so all four us headed out to make the ¾ mile hike to Rainbow Falls. We were docked on the west side of the river so we first had to cross a suspension pedestrian foot bridge to the east side before heading up river to the falls. The day was now sunny and warm and it was a pleasant hike to the falls where we encountered lots of young people swimming in the pool beneath the falls and sunning themselves on the surrounding rocks. We returned to the boat . John left to hike this side of the river and I started making spaghetti sauce for dinner. We had invited Stan and Linda to join us for dinner and cocktails. For cocktails I finally tried the frozen Pina Colada mix that Don and Kerry had brought on board weeks ago. It makes a great drink and we all enjoyed them . After dinner , we sat around drinking red wine and sharing stories before we turned in for the night.