ckingskills and gear.I hiked a few miles the first day and explored the woods, whereI ate wild blueberries for an hour. Then I set up camp behind asmall ridge on the beach. I collected dry grass along the edgeof the forest, which made a nice mattress. I pitched mybackpacking tarp fairly high, so the breeze would keep out themosquitos. When camp was set, I went for a swim.This area has many crayfish, which look and taste just likeminiature lobsters. After swimming I caught a dozen under therocks in shallow water, and carried them back to camp in awhipped-cream container I found. You never know what will washup on a beach.I boiled them with some cattail hearts and evening primroseroots, in my cheap three ounce pan. It made a good meal with thecrackers I brought. (You remove the meat from the tail of thecrayfish, after cooking.)It was summer, so I hadn't brought a sleepi...

...ng bag. At seventeenounces, my bag wouldn't have added much to my packweight ofeight pounds. I just wanted to try using a nylon sleeping bagliner 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 popbottle (1 ounce) and a few iodine tablets for purification. Itook a good drink before I packed up.I found fresh bear tracks on the beach. The bear had walkedwithin 60 yards of where I slept. I had a freon horn (2 ounces)that I'd bought after reading that people have used it'shigh-decible shriek to scare off bears. I pulled it out. Ifollowed the tracks for an hour, but only because I was going inthat direction.I had two old cabins to explore, another patch of berries I knewabout, and a beach full things to check out. The strangest itemthat regularly washes up is light bulbs. I take them home to usethem. After years of finding these, a sailor finally told methat they throw them off the ships to shoot at them in thewater. I was finding the ones they missed.The next day I headed back. The rain I expected never came, so Ididn't get to test my garbage bag rainsuit (2 ounces), but I hadused a similar one with success before. Overall, I was happywith my ultralight backpacking "test." Of course, you can get bywith fragile clothing and gear when you're hiking an open beach.Oh, and I never did see the bear....