We knew from the NOAA forecast on our marine radios that this was going to be a wind day, sustained twenty five miles an hour winds with gusts upwards of thirty five out of the north east, pushing waves up to 9 feet. The forecast was accurate. Our camp on the south west corner of the island afforded us great shelter from the wind and the lake was deceptively calm off our beach, but a quick look to the right or left of the islands wind shadow and the water was spattered with white caps as the wind funneled around the islands and throwing up a great commotion. 
After rising later (seven am – well that is late for us when camping) we had a hot breakfast and cleaned up. Oak island has a few hiking trails crisscrossing it, we settled on hiking the five mile round trip to the Oak 4 camp site to see if paddlers had actually arrived as planned. The walk through the woodlands was great, fabulous tall trees waving in the wind with a noise like a jet engine roar as gusts flew by. Half way to our destination the trail forked and there was a new sign post marking the way. The post had been attacked by a bear, its claw marks clearly visible dug deep into the timbers – glad that wasn’t my flesh.
When we arrived at Oak 4 we were greeted by a great view across the lake to Bear Island, the wind kicking up waves almost perpendicular to the beach, creating surf that ran a long way down the shore with each wave. There were no paddlers or campers to be found, clearly they had heard the forecast and stayed away. We took a break in the shelter of the trees, had some energy snacks then headed back to our camp for lunch.After lunch I took a nap sleeping soundly for a couple of hours, awoken eventually by the sound of surf crashing on our beach as the wind was slowly changing direction and occasional gusts were turning into the bay our camp was situated in. 
After a cup of herbal tea we headed back out onto the trails this time heading east towards camp site 1 where we met the group of paddlers from the local community college, they too were wind bound and had decided sensibly not to head to Stockton Island which was their original plan. We chatted briefly with them; they planned on just hanging out and returning to Little Sand Bay on Monday when the wind was forecast to be calm. 
We walked the two miles back to camp, done for the day, had some dinner lit a fire, and watched another great sunset.
