6:00 a.m. Mile 250
 I slept well.  About 11:30 I did have some animal running around my tent.  Probably a raccoon, a squirrel,  or a skunk.  He woke me rustling the leaves, but he moved on out.  I can hear the owls in the distance.  About 5 o'clock I heard squirrels barking.  It was a pleasant night with no problems.  I am tired after yesterday.  I am not going to be in too big a rush to get started.  I think I will wait until it is almost light before I start hauling all this stuff down that bank.

8:38 a.m. Kalamazoo Light, Mile 245.8
 Four miles in an hour.  This is my best start yet.  The wind is from the south, and I am headed east.  I should be able to sail well for a while.

9:17 a.m. Hartman Bottom Light, Mile 242.8
 Mile 242.8.  Having to face a little more into the wind.  I had to make one tack on that last run.

9:25 a.m. Mile 242
 I have had to zigzag a couple of times.  The wind is getting cold.  I will have to stop and dig out slicker pants and gloves.  I have made good time so I can allow myself the luxury of stopping to get warm.

10:34 a.m. Mile 239
 How distressing. The temperature is dropping.  The wind is blowing steady, but the weather is cold and dreary.  This reminds me of my experience during Outward Bound School in Minnesota when I spent three days on survival without seeing the sun.  The overcast skies cast a pall on my mood then, and now it's happened again.  The lockmaster predicted that the sun would come out.  That sucker lied to me!
 What's that smell?  The river has been without particular odors until now.  I just passed downwind of an industrial area that was filled with smells.  The smell of frying bacon drifted across the river making me want to pull to shore and share breakfast.  But now it smells more like a grain processing plant.  Now the smell has changed to the rank odor of a pig farm.  After sailing so far without odors, these three vivid smells have taken me from bacon to the pig within a hundred yards.

12:00 noon Highway 109 Bridge, Mile 235
 I am stopped by an 8 foot bluff on the windward side of the river which protects me from the wind, but the treetops serve as wind indicators by swaying violently side to side.  That is still a strong wind, but this is the time of day the wind picks up.  Maybe I ought to wait here a couple of hours. If I can just make 6 more miles, I'll stop for the night at Spadra Park near Clarksville.
 I ate a carrot, a can of chicken and can of peaches.  I would really like to have some crackers and peanut butter, but they are stashed somewhere way up there in the front of the boat.  And I don't know what happened to my fork.
 I cut the top off a plastic water jug to make a bailer.  I am disturbed about how much the boat is leaking.  My ropes get wet when they fall into the water in the boat, then they make my hands raw and cold.
 I have come 14.5 miles in 4.5 hours.  That's great time, but now I've stopped because of too much wind.

12:24 p.m.
 I am still at lunch.  I have been debating whether to try that wind anyway or to try to row through this little creek and try to go under the low part of the bridge.  I am afraid my mast won't fit under the bridge.  The chart does not indicate its height at that point.  If I rowed through there, the waves and wind would be a lot more comfortable.  But my judgment now is to try the wind.  I am going try it!  Once I make it through the next curve and get onto chart number 37, the wind will be behind me, and I can make a quick run to Spadra Creek.

1:06 p.m. Horsehead Creek Light, Mile 234.3
 Well, I've had my adventure for the trip. O Lord!  I found tremendous waves even before I got into the curve.  I knew something was going on, with those kind of waves that far away from the full force of the wind.  When I came around the bend, it seemed like the wind cranked up and started blowing about 30 or 40 mph.  But then I was committed.  I found myself in the middle of the river with the wind howling, with the sails a constant riot of popping and flapping, and with the waves whitecapping for the full two-mile stretch into the wind.  The wind blowing against the current made five or six foot waves which threatened to roll into the boat.  I had to concentrate all my being on meeting each wave just right and trying to get enough momentum out of the sails to keep moving into the wind.  I was fighting for my life.  Finally I saw a creek on the far shore and headed for it, but I couldn't make enough distance into the wind.  I wound up running against some broken concrete pieces about twenty yards shy of the creek.  I jumped out without falling into the water.  But the sails were beating themselves and me in deafening pandemonium.  I snatched the sails down, but the waves were smashing the boat into the concrete chunks.  Obviously, I couldn't stay here, so I pushed out into the wind to man the oars.  When I lifted the oars from the water, I found it almost as difficult to move them against the wind as it was to move them in the water.  Inch by inch I clawed away from the shore and finally pulled into the creek, a safe haven at last.
 O Lord, that's enough adventure for anybody. Man, that was frightening!

2:09 p.m.
 I've been waiting for an hour now.  The waves have settled down some, but the wind still gusts more than I like.
 I have been pacing back and forth, just waiting.  But in spite of the terror, in spite of being completely alone,  in spite of the obvious danger, I must confess that I would rather be right here than any place I know.

2:54 p.m.
 I am tired of waiting.  The wind is stronger than before with no sign of letting up.  I have decided to try to row right along the bank.  I will try to hold my own during the gusts, then try to make a few yards each time the gusts pass.  If it blows too hard, I can pull out anywhere along the muddy bank.  If I can just make one mile into the wind, I can turn the corner and use the wind to get to Spadra park.  I am going to try to make that park if I have to row against this wind the whole way.  I'm gone.

7:54 p.m. Spadra Park, Mile 230
 Thank God I am not alone!  The lady in the restaurant just announced, "There are tornado warnings for Johnson County until 8:15 tonight!"

 About five, I rowed up the little channel to the marina at Spadra Park.   After I tied my boat to a dock and started walking toward the building I saw a man fishing off the sheltered dock.
 "Hi, how you doing?"
 "Fine, how you?"
 "Can you tell me the weather forecast?"
 "Storms and high winds!"
 That settled my questions about whether to quit tonight or not.  It was time to call for my ride home.
 "Is there a telephone up there?"
 "Yep, up there at the restaurant."
 "There's a restaurant here?"
 "Yeah, and a good one too.  I recommend their catfish."
 Right then, I decided to have the biggest plate of catfish they served.

 I was so tired I couldn't finish "The Big Catch" of catfish, though it was very tasty.  I was so exhausted!  I must have looked a sight with my foul weather gear on and my Ultimate Hat.  Plus I haven't bathed or shaved for three days.
 After eating, I went down to the dock and unloaded the gear onto the docks.  Then I oared the boat the quarter mile back down the channel, under the railroad bridge and over to the launching ramp.  The storm kicked up with strong winds and lots of lightning just as I rounded the corner at the bridge... in the dark, by the way.  I could hardly see in the darkness, just enough to stay off the shore, but I kept hitting sandbars and having to row with all my might to get off them.
 I had great trouble making it through the bridge.  The pillars were only about 12 feet apart and my boat plus oars were almost that wide.  Plus the wind was gusting as strong as it had been all day.  With my boat empty, the wind blew it even stronger than before.  I came to a complete stop right under the bridge in spite of rowing as hard as I could.  Just as I inched out from under the bridge the boat blew sideways so that my final stroke with my right oar did not clear the pillar.  I pulled hard with the left oar, but the wind caught me and blew me sideways and up against the right pillar.  I had to push off with my hands and try again.  The same thing happened the second time.  Finally, I worked my way back under the bridge centered between the pillars and pulled with all my might and cleared the pillar.  But then the full force of the wind and waves whipping all the way across the lake were on me.  After another 10 minutes of exhausting rowing, I made it to the launching ramp.  I pulled the boat completely out of the water, took down the mast, and tidied up the boat for trailering it.
 Then I began the hike back to the marina just as the bottom opened up and the downpour began in earnest.  I was too tired to care.  My foul weather gear kept me dry so I prayed the lightning would not hit me and marched on.  I didn't realize how far I would have to hike.  It seemed like a mile through the park and back to the marina.  I was stopped at the railroad crossing by one of the coal trains that I had been seeing along the river's edge.  It was a long, loud train and moving fast.  Exhausted but determined, I trudged on.
 Back at the marina, I started hauling my gear piece by piece up the long steps to the front of the marina.  All that gear is heavy, and did I mention that I was already tired.  I must have made ten trips to get all my stuff.  By now there were five dock fishermen plying their trade by night.  They mostly ignored me, and I ignored them.  They didn't offer to help.  Their conversations ran along the lines of the-big-one-that-broke-a-60-pound-line-and-got-away to we-caught-250-fish-in-three-hours-on-Lake-Michigan.

8:15 p.m.
 I am so glad I took the dare to leave that creek this afternoon and row into the storm.  Now I am full of catfish, waiting in a cozy marina for my ride home rather than sitting in a tent with a tornado blowing overhead.
 What makes me do these things?  What is it about my nature or my experience that makes me even think of such a challenge?  I don't know yet.  Maybe I'll discover that during my next journey... down the Arkansas.