Getting the flavor of...Canada’s Lake of the Woods

Canada’s Lake of the Woods

Stretching across almost 1,500 square miles at the border between Canada and Minnesota, Lake of the Woods is “sweeping,” said Michael Tortorello in The New York Times. After the Great Lakes, it is the largest body of freshwater that touches U.S. soil, and its 14,000 islands and “storied cabin culture” have made it a “destination for generations of families.” A buddy and I had come to ditch our families, though, setting out on an 18-foot sailboat to explore the lake’s Canadian waters. Sure, we misread the clouds and encountered a storm. But, by “luck and pluck,” we survived its 50-mph winds, and the scare only helped us appreciate the placidity of Micrometer Bay. Along the bay’s shoreline, we encountered pelicans that looked like C-130 planes and fishermen hunting trophy muskellunge, a “4-foot-long sea monster of the northern freshwaters.” Jumping in, we swam until we were shivering.

Mexican surf and turf

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The Pacific Ocean crashed beside me as I eyed my third stroke on the third hole of Punta Mita’s Pacifico course, said Mark Conley in The Philadelphia Inquirer. The signature hole of this Jack Nicklaus–designed track—one of two on Mexico’s Riviera Nayarit—this par-3 boasts the only green in the world that’s carved from a natural island: At low tide, you drive your cart across a cobblestoned isthmus to get to it. The hole is “a beauty that could turn beastly,” but it’s well worth the challenge, not to mention the trip. Riviera Nayarit is a “largely untapped” 190-mile stretch of Pacific coast full of “uncluttered surf lineups and wide-open fairways.” Here, you can play 18, “then hang 10.” Some surf breaks, like El Faro or Monuments, require hiring a “knowledgeable boat skipper,” while others call only for a four-wheel vehicle, “a good map,” and “a bit of gumption.” Along this “surf-and-turf nirvana,” all are worth the effort.