The Expedition That Reunited a Family

How teamwork during a sailing expedition rebuilt a family

In 2015, my kids were entering their mid-20s and due to divorce, moves, remarriage, and other changes, we were becoming strangers. I needed to own that.

So how to fix it? Answer: A sailing expedition.

My plan? Get them interested (and trained) in sailing with the carrot of a week’s vacation in the Caribbean.

We lived in Minnesota, so warm weather was the right bait.

It turns out through the magic of sailing certifications, training, and the bareboat charter industry, you can fly to the Caribbean, provide a credit card, and you effectively own a 20,000-pound, 40-foot, twin-hulled sailboat for a week.

This trip was the first where I was the captain and my kids were the crew. Sailing and operating the boat were 100% on us.

We were ready for the challenge.

But we had a lot to learn. And we had been sailing through darkness, for years.

Truth is, we didn’t know each other anymore.

We landed in the Charlotte Amalie, USVI, then transited via ferry to the British Virgin Islands where our boat was located.

To be honest, the boat and the environment were very intimidating.

Although we had sailed in the BVI the previous year for training, the boat was now my responsibility, 100%.

All 10 tons of it, and although the BVI is a the world’s most popular cruising ground, the seas get big, 4-8 ft is common.

But that’s the essence of an expedition: you are pushing past your comfort zone into an unknown. Even if it’s known for others. If it’s not known to you, then it’s a (light) expedition.

After adjusting to the boat and it’s idiosyncrasies, the first few days went very smoothly. We certainly enjoyed the 100+ degree temperature difference, from -20 F in Minneapolis in early January to 84F in the BVI.

We enjoyed all the delights of sailing the Caribbean’s finest cruising ground: wind, beautiful anchorages, and sunsets.

But the best part of the trip was the most stressful & challenging, and came on the third day, when we headed to Anegada, an outer island surrounded by reefs.

And this is where things got interesting. What we had experienced so far was idyllic; that was about to change. The skies darkened, the wind picked up, and we had to push through a big storm, big seas, and dangerous reefs to get to the best part of the islands: Anegada, and it’s endless, glistening white sand beaches.

During that part of the voyage, both my son and daughter played critical roles. My son stayed calm and found the outer buoy leading to the safe channel into the island’s only harbor. My daughter learned the right holding strategy from other boats when the visibility went to less than 100 feet (just hold in position, right into the wind, until the squall passes), and schooled us on it.

They tempered my worst tendency: to just stick with the strategy and force things, rather than adapt to circumstances.

We were soon rewarded with a gorgeous anchorage which, post-storm, was awash in rainbows and glistening white beaches.

Since this was an expedition, it required teamwork to complete the mission.

That teamwork reunited my kids and I, the success we had rebuilt trust and love, and the gorgeous natural surroundings cemented that love.

Conclusion

Most travel today is focused strictly on maximum comfort in known surroundings. Expeditionary travel is different: it’s about learning new skills, applying them in strange, unfamiliar environments, and adapting and growing in the process. It should be mentally and physically demanding, at a level that is appropriate for you.

Too much comfort is the enemy: it’s why we have an epidemic of obesity; it’s why being outdoors is so strange to so many of us; and why we focus so much on removing risk from our lives. The pervasive ill health we see today, including mental illness, is partly due to this incessant search for comfort.

By learning sailing skills and then applying them in challenging situations with some risk, a great thing happened. I was able to rebuild my relationship with my kids via the teamwork required in a difficult situation, build my own confidence, and most importantly, get ready for the next challenge.

An Early Spring Overnight Canoe Trip on the St. Croix River

St Croix River Canoe Trip Log, May 10-11, 2020

The St. Croix River is a National Wild and Scenic River on the border between Minnesota and Wisconsin. It’s 169 miles in length and has historic significance in the fur trade as it was the highway that connected Lake Superior to the Mississippi. Its undeveloped, tree-lined shores are surrounded by state forests and parks. It’s a laid-back river with a few rapids thrown in. As a result, St. Croix a world-class river for canoeing and kayaking. It has numerous campsites, good fishing, and abundant wildlife along its shores.

I have canoed this river several times every year since 2005. In 2020, I was able to sneak 3 trips in. It’s a convenient, one-hour drive from my home to Grantsburg, where my outfitter is based. On these trips the outfitter takes me to canoe landings 10 to 20 miles upriver where I begin my travel downstream.

Day 1, May 10, 2020

I drove to Grantsburg to meet Jerry, who runs Wild River Outfitters with his wife Marilyn. Instead of the longer 30-river-mile Thayer to Highway 70 bridge trip, I decided to do just the run from Norway Point to Hwy 70, about 15 miles. This trip includes some easy Class 1 Rapids.

I would have preferred taking 3 days and 2 nights for the full trip but even just the overnight was worth it given the short drive from St Michael.

I put in at the Norway Point landing late at 5pm. The river was higher than normal, high enough that Jerry said I could take the Kettle River Slough, a shallow side channel that is impassable during low water. I chose not to take this route because I wanted to get to the campsite at the end of the Slough faster, and the alternate river left stretch is scenic, with endless white pines and gentle, undulating rapids. The campsite at the end of the confluence of the Kettle and St Croix Rivers was my goal for the first night. In the first hour of the trip I saw a beautiful immature bald eagle and a nesting osprey nesting near Nelson’s Landing, about 3 miles downriver from Norway Point. Turkey Vultures were lazily circling in the sky. The wind rose and fell, up to almost 15 knots, then dropping to calm again. But it was generally steady from the northwest at about 10 to 12 knots. The sky was cloudy, the temperature around 50 F.

My canoe paddle strokes were less rusty than on the previous weekend’s trip on the Kettle River. I kept the GoPro Camera clamped to front of boat, and took footage with both phone and voice control. I plan to turn on the linear (non fish eye) camera mode on more often. Also based on the high glare due to reflections of the water on this trip, I decided to purchase ND filters for cinematic views, and a polarizing filter to handle glare on the water. Another lesson: check the settings before every shot as the settings I used during the trip were not ideal. I know all this sounds obvious but I am hoping readers can learn from my mistakes.

On the first night night I targeted the South Point Camp, where the Kettle River Slough meets the St. Croix River. I have camped here many times in the past, with family and friends including with my son Andrew.

After a routine 8 mile paddle I came into camp at about 7:30pm and quickly got set up. Started a fire with an Esbit solid fuel cube. Did not cook, ate cheese and peanuts plus Federalist Lodi Zinfandel. Temperatures in camp dropped quickly after dark, to around 40 degrees, and I put on all my wool clothing and a goose down parka. I used the parka and a heavy sweater to cover my thin sleeping bag to stay warm that night. I do not like the narrow inflatable bed and plan to upgrade. Once it got dark I headed to bed. A bird made an odd call, a short buzz, on a regular 10 second or so cadence. It seemed to move around a lot. Otherwise an uneventful, rather cold night, with temps down to the mid 20s. I got up in the middle of the night to pee and saw that the sky had cleared and there was almost a full moon. Unlike previous solo trips, I had no fear of being alone. Bronze Age Mindset.

Day 2, May 11, 2020
The next morning, I slept in, until after 8am. The bright sun warmed my tent. A beautiful but chilly morning in camp.

I spent the morning and early afternoon reading, writing, and just soaking in the beauty of this magical spot, its wide, generous view of the rushing river, multiple islands and shorelines and big southern exposure, almost like a lake.

Many white wildflowers, Trillium, were coming up. I photographed them, and various parts of the rapids and the river with both the GoPro and my Sony A7III. A gorgeous bright day. I was approached by two shy deer who, after letting me take pictures for a few minutes, fled into the woods. Since this was a Monday, there was much less ATV noise from the nearby state park than the weekend before. Fabulous. That morning I did not cook, other than boiled water for coffee. Who knew fasting and hard spring travel go together. Tree swallows swarmed above my camp and the river all day, feasting on some bugs I never identified, but they must have been there because something was fueling their swarming energy. Saw eagles, ducks, mergansers, turkey vultures and more. Animals, like people, love spring.

Broke camp around 3pm and headed downriver. This time I tucked my behind in the rail behind my seat, and kept my back slightly curled, and my abs and gluts tight and this helped immensely with preventing back pain. It’s interesting how we have to relearn the basics every season for a lot of things, including canoeing.

I had two GoPro’s for filming and took quite a few shots. My plan was to fly the drone but to my surprise there were a lot of people on the river and the wind was a little high so the drone stayed grounded. GoPro settings: I found if I use the GoPro color settings, the results are pretty good. Dramatic but good. One camera was misconfigured and used 16:9 for the camera aspect ratio; the other camera had the ISO and color settings wrong. And both cameras needed polarizing and ND filters.

Otherwise the 7 mile paddle from camp to the takeout at the Highway 70 bridge was an idyll; cool, nice breeze on my back, the river just right in terms of flow. In a few places the wind veered and came upriver, briefly slowing me down, but the bright sun and quiet river made for a lovely spring trip. Pulled out at Hwy 70 and got back to St Michael on a routine return trip.

First Kettle and St. Croix River Overnight Canoeing Trip with My New Boat

Dates: May 2-3, 2020
Summary: A short, solo overnight canoe trip on the Kettle River in west central Minnesota.

Background: The Kettle River is a small, beautiful, near wilderness river that flows for about 70 miles from central Minnesota to the border with Wisconsin. I chose a stretch with both flat water and some rapids with outstanding camp sites available along the whole route.

May 2, 2020
I started the trip where the Kettle River crosses the Highway 48 bridge at roughly 2pm. Strong wind from NW at 20 to 25mph, a nice tail wind. Clear sky and 3/4 moon. Sunset was at 8:30pm so lights out by roughly 9pm, so plenty of time to cover the first 18 miles (I hoped).

I covered the exact trip described in the excellent book “Paddling Minnesota” [Trip 69] except I paddled into the St. Croix River and went all the way to Hwy 70.

The first 7 miles were bottomland forest. Strong NW wind at my back plus the fast current from moderately high water moved me along at 4+ knots. Saw a few other parties camping/fishing on the river, they had arrived via small motorboats the dropped in at a boat landing. No rapids in first 7 miles.

While paddling, I considered the best spot for the first night’s camp. Since this was the first canoe trip of 2020, my strokes were really rusty and I was sore and tired after only a few hours. I need more conditioning before the season starts. After a short stop to hydrate (and lose my camp chair when I forgot to repack it in the canoe), and another stop at the Big Eddy put in, I was able to get a picture of a map of the rest of trip on the Kettle River. (I’m such a pro I had forgotten my maps at home).

The time was roughly 6pm. Since I had another three hours of light I decided to go ahead and paddle through the 7 miles of rapids, keeping an eye out for possible campsites. Three were available, the last being Two Rivers, where the Kettle River enters the Kettle River slough, a side branch of the St. Croix River.

To make a long story short, I got through the 7 mile stretch of rapids with no problems, stopping only at Maple River and Big Eddy to scout rapids and check maps. The ledge at Big Eddy required some maneuvering and back ferrying and I was rusty both on boat positioning and ferrying. A couple of near misses were the result. I had done this stretch during the MCA training two years before.

With the wind and higher current through this stretch, I was sometimes going as fast as 7 to 8 knots. My Navionics maps were very helpful in checking position and speed. Saw quite a few people on the St. Croix, river left, the state park side. River right was the Chengwatana State Forest, saw no one on that side.

During 2 hours traveling I missed two campsites on river left; from the Navionics map I knew I should be close to Two Rivers camp, and sure enough, reached it around 8:15pm.

After unpacking gear, stowing the canoe, getting a bite to eat and some wine to relax with, I spent 30 minutes taking golden hour photos. I then got the tent set up and watched the first of the stars come out. Mars and Venus raced across the sky. Turkeys, rails, coyotes, and other animool frens greeted me with their voices. Finally fell asleep. Unlike my previous solo trips, that night I had no worries or fears. My animool frens would look out for me.

Day 2: May 3, 2020Spent the morning in camp taking photographs. The White Pines at river’s edge were stately, desperately resisting the river’s attempts to undercut and destroy them. Lots of signs of high water recently, with grass and branches from waterflow stuck in bottom land and trees. Did not cook dinner the previous night or make breakfast, stuck with cold food. Frankly just wasn’t that hungry, probably from adrenaline and stress. Very sore. No fire on day 1 or 2. Windy and cold, but sunny. This time of year the days are already very long (almost 15 hours) but it’s still chilly most mornings.

Finally set out at noon, with another 14 miles to go. Got the GoPro out for pics and filming. After 1st mile encountered the ledge and steep rapids as the Kettle joins the St. Croix. Stayed river right which worked well, but when I followed a channel to the right, I had to stop and scout. Lining upriver was not an option due to a large tree trunk blocking the way, so I found a route through the channel while scouting and was able to easily pass through. The rapids-running rust in my system was getting washed away.

The rest of the trip was easy paddling with the high current and a North wind that was again right on my back. Saw many fisherman along the way, most said fishing was slow. Sunny skies. Cool, but not cold. Weather was perfect. Most campsites on this stretch were used, but not the one at the confluence of the St. Croix and Kettle.

Stopped at the ssland a couple miles north of Hwy 70 bridge (across from Sandrocks Cliffes) for lunch. A sweet memory as this was the last place I swam together with Duke, my 13-year-old lab who passed away the previous fall.

A plane was flying oddly low over the park on the Wisconsin side. Canoed pass a group of red winged blackbirds who all in unison raged a me for getting too close, apparently. Water too cold for swimming.

Made it to Hwy 70 bridge, pulled out the canoe and gear, and the trip home was routine.