Day 2

I awoke to the sound of thunder rolling in the distance. I saw that it was lighter but still not bright enough to really see clearly, signaling very early morning. I looked at Alex as she slept. From the added light I could tell that she did have a great body as I suspected from the previous night. I remember that she was on her dance team at school and remembered that in MY high school, those girls were usually some of the hottest in school. Her breasts were large with just a hint of sag as their weight forced them, slightly, towards her armpits. They were topped by much darker nipples, which were about three or four centimeters across. I brushed some hair out of her face and kissed her awake. She smiled and then as she realized where she was, her eyes shot open and asked, "What time is it?"

"I have no idea, but I'm guessing early. Some thunder woke me up."

"Oh, shit." She said pulling on her sweatshirt, covering up her nudity. "I hope no one else is awake."

I thought about it for a second then told her, "Just head to the woods by the canoes then circle around, if anyone sees you, say that you were out peeing."

Alex smiled, kissed me, and said, "Oh that's perfect. Thanks. And also thanks for last night I loved it."

"No," I said kissing her back. Then, as she pulled on the rest of her clothes under the sleeping bag, I continued, "I should be the one to be thanking you for not letting me sleep alone on that cold hard wet ground."

"Believe me," she said, "it was MY pleasure." She kissed me again and then crawled out of my tent and headed off in the direction of the canoes. In a few minutes I heard it start to rain lightly again. I soon drifted off into a light sleep.

I awoke to the sound of the pots and pans being removed from the food packs. I quickly dressed in a T-shirt and my swimsuit. I pulled on my rain jacket and crawled out of my tent. The rain was just the same kind of drizzle that we had yesterday. Under the trees every so often a big drop would fall off the leaves, but most of the rain was blocked. I saw Kari setting up the stove, and a big pot of water sitting on a rock near her.

When I got over to her Kari looked up at me. She looked a bit surprised, but got a twinkle in her eye and a slight smirk on her face (only one dimple appeared) when she said, "I'm kinda surprised that you're up so early."

I feigned innocence and asked, "Why do you say that?"

"Oh no reason," she smiled. She turned back to the stove and said, "it's just that there were a couple of animals in camp last night making some noise and I was wondering if they had kept you up."

I almost busted out laughing, but sucked it back in and just smiled instead. In a few seconds when I had enough control I said, "Nope, once I fell asleep, I was out."

"That's good to hear." Kari replied as she started to make tea with some of the water. "Remember we have those three portages today, and with this rain, that means they'll be muddy, and slow going."

"I'll be OK." I said as I got the brown sugar out of the cook kit. As I looked for something for breakfast, I continued, "But the question is: will YOU be OK? You know, since those animals kept you awake and you probably didn't get much sleep at all."

Kari finally busted out laughing and I joined in. The look that passed from her to me was filled with electricity, and I was kind surprised that she was OK with what happened between Alex and me last night. It was almost as if she approved of what was going on and encouraged it. I didn't know how to react to her but when I thought about it for a few seconds, if anything it made me like her even more. Finally she stood and gave me a hug and then said, "Be careful, I'm starting to like you too much to be devoured by some animal out here."

I smiled and looked in to her eyes. Almost falling into them I just whispered, "Don't you worry, they're all too little to do much to me, besides, I don't go looking for little game. I like older more mature animals that will give me a good hunt."

I'm sure she understood what I was implying, as she smiled up at me and leaned in closer. We closed our eyes and just as our lips barely touched, the zipper on the girl's tent started to open causing the two of us to jump in surprise. We separated and Kari finished with the tea and I turned to get out some instant flavored oatmeal to make for breakfast.

Brittany and Cait crawled out of their tent. They both shivered, and while Cait headed towards the woods Brittany came over to me and asked, "What's for breakfast?"

"Well I figured we'd do oatmeal." I answered.

"Oatmeal?"

"Yeah, oatmeal. I thought that we'd need something hot since it's kinda cold, something fairly quick since we don't really want to be just standing around in the rain. So oatmeal it is, unless, you want to make the powdered eggs, and ham. Which would be good cuz then I could go and get some more sleep while you cook."

Brittany's eyes widened, as I said that last part about her cooking, while Kari just laughed. Finally and Brittany said, "Um... no... I guess oatmeal is OK."

I laughed along with Kari and said, "When the weather gets better we'll have a better breakfast. I promise. Ok?"

Brittany smiled when she realized that I was just messing with her and said "Ok, but I'm gonna hold you to it."

Since I had been looking into the cook kits I asked her, "What would your majesty want for her 'special' breakfast when you finally get it?"

"Bacon, waffles, Orange juice, and... sausage." She said.

At first I was kinda taken aback... we didn't have ANY of that stuff, until I remembered that she had been on this trip the previous year and she knew that. So she was now messing with me and she started to laugh, as did Kari, and when I recovered from my surprise I joined in too.

By this time Cait had come back and we also heard more people stirring inside the girl's tent. Dani crawled out first, followed by Alex. She looked pretty good considering that she had so little sleep. That made me wonder; what did I really look like? 'Oh well, not much I can do about it now.' I thought.

The oatmeal came in little individual serving size packets so everyone could choose the flavor that they liked and add hot water to it. Kari and I had some tea, before eating. Oh I was SO glad for that caffeine!! I even had two or three cups. I finally made Kari her oatmeal and then mine. She looked at me kinda funny when I brought her her oatmeal, and I just said to her, "Hey, you said I was to be the butler." She smiled a smile that seemed to brighten the entire island. I sat and we talked while we ate.

Alex and Dani were recruited to do the cleanup since they were the last two to get up. As they cleaned the rest of us took down our tents. I hoped that the sun would come out soon so we could dry the tents when we made camp this afternoon. I didn't want to have to crawl into a damp tent tonight.

Finally everything was packed and ready to go. Alex and Cait were in one canoe and Dani went with Kari while Brittany jumped into my canoe with a smirk and said, "Glenn's mine, I get to ride with him today." I looked around to see if anyone else heard her stress the word 'mine' or if it was just me. Since no one was looking at her, or me, I pushed it to the back of my mind with the thought I'm imagining things. There is NO WAY that anyone else would be interested in me.

Brittany and I paddled to the first portage leading everyone else. We talked and had a good time, even though it was still misting. This portage was fairly short only a hundred meters or so. When we got to the other side of it we had a fairly short, we could see the other side, paddle across the bay of another lake to our second portage. We headed across while the others came to the trailhead.

Just before that portage, according to the map, there was a sunken steamboat. When we got over there, all that could be seen was the outline of the boat under the water, and the sunken engine. The parts above water had been either salvaged or rotted away. I thought it was kinda neat, so Brittany and I paddled around it a few times trying to see it from every angle. She also thought it was OK once she thought about it. "Kinda like a sunken treasure ship if you let your imagination run with it." She said.

I agreed and then said, "I wish the weather was better so we could go and swim around it with the sunshine making it easier to see."

"Oh that would be cool." Brittany excitedly said. "It would be even better if we had scuba or snorkeling gear."

I agreed and then we talked about snorkeling and scuba diving, while the others unloaded and headed up the next portage. Brittany was very much of an athlete. She played basketball and softball in H.S. and had a scholarship to play basketball at Louisville. She was about 5'11", the coloring of cafe au lait, and had wide shoulders for a girl, which tapered to a narrow waist and then flared out to her hips. In all, she had a very nice hourglass type of figure. I also gathered from our conversations that Brittany was intelligent and a bit more mature than what I'd seen from the other girls. She'd had a bit of a rough childhood until she was able to learn from it, instead of being embittered by it. While not as visually stunning as Alex, or in my eyes as Kari, she was still a very attractive and beautiful young lady partly because of her attitude and personality.

When we were at the next portage Brittany and I went along the trail faster than the others, passed them, and even had our canoe packed up and ready to go before the others arrived at the other end. "We're good together." Brittany said as she sat in the canoe ready to go.

I was reminded of the way that she said that I was hers today. And I tried not to stare at her or look at her weirdly, as I replied, "Yeah we make a pretty decent team, but to make a better 'TEAM' we really should go back and help."

"Oh they're fine, besides they're here now." She said as we saw them round a bush and emerge on the trail.

We thought about stopping for a mid-morning snack but instead we all headed out on to the new lake. After about a hundred yards out into the water, the wind picked up, then the sky seemed to open up as rain poured down onto us. The girls screamed, as I cursed under my breath while we hunkered down further under our raincoats. I meanwhile steered Brittany and myself towards shore to take advantage of the sheltering trees. When we got to the leeward area the rain slackened a bit and the waves also lessened.

Brittany looked out towards the others who were not much further ahead, and struggling against the waves. "Damn Glenn, I'm glad I'm with you." She laughed as she pointed to the others and said, "Look! They finally saw us and are finally turning."

I smiled and agreed then said, "It's too bad that Kari wasn't steering her canoe, otherwise I'm sure she would've been heading over here as soon as possible too."

Going along the shore would take a bit longer, than heading straight across the lake under normal conditions, but with the wind, waves, and rain it would be easier to hug the shore. Besides, the map that I had showed that there were some petroglyphs ahead on this side of the lake just before we got to the portage.

We continued along the shore, and waited for Kari and Dani to reach us, so we wouldn't get too far ahead. Meanwhile Alex and Cait remained farther out in the lake. We could tell that they could see us but they just waved to us. I guess that they were enjoying themselves. When Kari and Dani got to us Kari said, "I tried to get them to come over to the side with us but they wanted to stay and try to muscle it through." I shook my head as Brittany called them idiots. Kari continued, "I showed them where the portage was and they said they'd meet us there."

Kari and I would look back at them every so often to check their progress and to make sure that they were OK. I saw them talking quite a bit, although because of the rain I couldn't hear a thing. Finally I saw them turn towards shore as we neared the portage.

Near the portage, was the cliff that had the petroglyphs on it. We slowed down and Kari pointed out three canoes with figures in them. Above and to the right of the canoes was what looked like a moose and above that was a sun type symbol. We took pictures of them and they impressed me in general. To think that someone who was considered to be 'primitive' had 'scribbled' down something so long ago, that was still looked at and admired today was humbling.

We got to the portage and waited for Alex and Cait to finally make it in to shore. While waiting we stood under the canopy of the trees in as much shelter as we could get. We only had to wait for about fifteen minutes or so before they got there, and we helped them ashore. As we they were unloading their canoe I thought I saw Cait looking at me differently, and I found myself hoping that Alex hadn't said too much about the night before. All I really needed was for this to be the topic 'du jour' for teenagers who could keep a secret about as well as they could carry water in a sieve.

This was the longest portage of the day, and in fact the longest one we'd been on yet. I trudged through it methodically, and evenly, getting to the other end in about an hour. Cait had asked Brittany to help carry some of their stuff and if she would mind trading once in a while. The trail was slick and muddy from the rain, and the trail started off with a steep incline followed by a short level area, which was followed by a long downward slope to the other end. While walking along this trail the rain slowed and finally stopped altogether.

When I got to the other end, I was still tired from the night before. Instead of going back and helping carry stuff, I opened the cook kit and started to make more PB&J's for everyone to have when they arrived. I even found some drink mix powder and an empty container that was obviously intended to mix the powder in. I poured in some of the powder, stripped off my shoes, socks, and shirt and waded out past the few feet of reeds near the edge into the cleaner lake further out. When I was up to my chest I figured I was out far enough and filled the container with water. As I was coming back to shore I could hear the girls coming down the trail and was excited to surprise them with the impromptu meal. I looked down to make sure that me feet weren't too muddy before I pulled my socks and shoes back on when I noticed a big shiny wad of mud on the side of my left calf towards the bottom, near my ankle. When I went to flick it off I noticed it move and stretch itself along my skin.

LEECHES!!! I felt my skin crawl, and almost dropped the container of drink in my rush to grab some mud and leaves, or grass, to help scrape this parasite off of me. I am a scientist however, and I also felt a strange curiosity towards it. I made a quick check of the rest of my body to be sure that it was the only one, even making the check inside of my swimsuit, just like the boys in that one movie. Luckily I wasn't as unfortunate as they were, as I had no others on me. I noticed that before I scraped it off that it had just made an incision into my skin and started feeding. But the fact that I didn't feel a thing was partially amazing and repulsing at the same time. I pulled it off of my leg and the wound started to ooze blood fairly freely. Before I dug into the other cook kit to get out the first aid kit, I stomped on the bloodsucker, crushing it on a rock.

As I was getting the first aid kit opened to apply some antibacterial ointment and a bandage, the girls came down to the trailhead. I told them, "I made some lunch and even found some drink mix, so we won't have to drink plain water."

I don't know what they were happier about, the food, or the drink mix. Personally I liked just water, and this water was good.

Kari noticed me bleeding and asked, "What happened to you? Get poked by a stick?"

"Nope," I said dabbing the wound with a gauze pad that had some salve on it. "I'm just so damned sweet I was attacked, by a wild animal."

This caused the other girls to turn with mouths full of food and look at us; Dani's eyes were just about popping out of her head, as there was a collective "WHAT??"

I laughed and I finished applying the salve and then put on the bandage. I got a sandwich off of the plate and then explained, "Well, while going to get the water for the drink mix, I picked up a "friend" who thought I was just the sweetest ol' thang."

More puzzled looks.

"It was a leech." I finally said as the girls finished with their last bites.

There were collective Eeeewwwww's from the girls; followed by rapid-fire questions "You got it in THIS lake?" "Did it hurt?" "How big was it?" "Are we all going to get leeches?" "How did you know you had it?" "Are you SURE it didn't hurt?" "Was there more than one?" "Do you think there are anymore in the water?" "Are you SURE it didn't hurt?" "How did you get it off?"

Kari and I looked at each other and started to laugh. While I finished eating and packing up the cook kit she explained. "Yes, there ARE leeches in SOME of the lakes here but mainly in the ones that have muddy bottoms."

"So be sure to keep your bottom clean." I mumbled to myself. Or so I thought, Brittany who was the closest to me hic/coughed as she held in a laugh.

Kari looked at us but continued, "If you stay out of the muddy areas, which you can tell by the reeds that grow there, and the areas of still or stagnant water you should be safe from them. Just check yourself afterwards and if you scrape them off fairly quickly, no big deal."

The girls were all kinda freaked out and as we cast off into this lake they all checked themselves after they were in the canoes safely. I kinda saw it as the thirty-second rule that guys have, if the food hasn't been on the ground for more than thirty seconds it's still OK to eat. If you haven't been in the water with leeches for more than thirty seconds, you're still OK.

We went around a point of land into what was called a 'river'. In reality it was more like an opening in the reeds. The current was very slow and barely perceptible. According to the map that I had, this snaked around for about two kilometers, and opened up in another bay off of a larger lake. In that larger lake was an island we were to camp on.

The paddle along the river was somewhat uneventful and we made it to the bay in about a half an hour, maybe more. The first half of the bay that we entered was also filled with reeds. About half way through these reeds I saw a shadow pass over our canoe.

"Wooo Hooo!!" I cried out.

Brittany jumped in surprise, turned to me and asked, "What in the hell did you do that for?"