Kayak Camping

Last week, Rich, Bruce and I took our Hobie kayaks down to Lake Monroe in Bloomington to try some kayak camping.  I'd spent a lot of time on Lake Monroe, but I didn't know that Indiana's only designated wilderness area is on the shores of the lake.  So we drove to the Cutright boat ramp, loaded all our camping gear in and on our kayaks, and peddled to the Charles C. Deam Wilderness area to camp for a couple of nights.  I was impressed with how much gear I could get inside my Outback.  The key there is pack stuff in lots of small bags.  I still had a couple of big bags, a cooler, and the firewood to secure on the deck. 

  Even loaded down, the Hobie mirage drives got us across the lake without a problem.

We were able to get into the wilderness area and find a campsite in about one and a half hours.

 Bruce was delayed joining us because a storm had knocked out the power to his house the night before our departure.  He was able to join us in time to set up camp, and prepare for some heavy rain our first night out.

We found a great campsite, and had our part of the lake pretty much to ourselves.  It was rumored that at least one camper went skinny-dipping.

Here's Rich's set-up.

And here's Bruce examining his broken GPS. (Do not sit on your GPS.)

We spent the second day fishing and exploring the remote parts of the lake that abut the wilderness area.  I haven't seen so many eagles since my trip on the Mississippi River.

All the photos were taken by Rich--as well as the these two videos. 

 Returning to camp.

Even though it rained all night the first night out, we had a great time.  Only thing that could have made it better was if our pal the Dawg had been with us.