July?

A Portage Bay start on a day in a summer that hasn't quite become summer. Ocean clouds persist each morning with cool damp air. I remember noticing this morning that the rising sun was a very long ways north on the horizon.

Having passed through the east channel of the burial island, and then through the sneak passage in the cattails, I find the calved off marsh island to be reattached, again, and I startle a mother duck and ducklings. I always try hard to avoid them because they always seem to scatter in a way that would seem impossible for the mother to reassemble.
An immature bald eagle sits on a low stump in the gap that leads to Union Bay. It flies off when I am still one hundred yards away and it sets on a higher perch on the burial island.

I head out into the big lake and turn south into a light wind and choppy surface.