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I hiked a few miles the first day and explored the woods, where I ate wild blueberries for an hour. Then I set up camp behind a small ridge on the beach. I collected dry grass along the edge of the forest, which made a nice mattress. I pitched my backpacking tarp fairly high, so the breeze would keep out the mosquitos. When camp was set, I went for a swim. This area has many crayfish, which look and taste just like miniature lobsters. After swimming I caught a dozen under the rocks in shallow water, and carried them back to camp in a whipped-cream container I found. You never know what will wash up on a beach. I boiled them with some cattail hearts and evening primrose roots, in my cheap three ounce pan. It made a good meal with the crackers I brought. (You remove the meat from the tail of the crayfish, after cooking.) It was summer, so I hadnt brought a sleeping bag. At seventeen ounces, my bag wouldnt have added much to my packweight of eight pounds. I just wanted to try using a nylon sleeping bag liner I had recently sewn (5 ounces). I wore my clothes to bed, including a hat I made from the sleeve of an old thermal shirt (1 ounce). I slept well, and ate granola bars for breakfast. Water was all around, so I only had a 16-ounce plastic pop bottle (1 ounce) and a few iodine tablets for purification. I took a good drink before I packed up. I found fresh bear tracks on the beach. The bear had walked within 60 yards of where I slept. I had a freon horn (2 ounces) that Id bought after reading that people have used its high-decible shriek to scare off bears. I pulled it out. I followed the tracks for an hour, but only because I was going in that direction. I had two old cabins to explore, another patch of berries I knew about, and a beach full things to check out. The strangest item that regularly washes up is light bulbs. I take them home to use them. After years of finding these, a sailor finally told me that they throw them off the ships to shoot at them in the water. I was finding the ones they missed. The next day I headed back. The rain I expected never came, so I didnt get to test my garbage bag rainsuit (2 ounces), but I had used a similar one with success before. Overall, I was happy with my ultralight backpacking test. Of course, you can get by with fragile clothing and gear when youre hiking an open beach. Oh, and I never did see the bear. |
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