Earth Day 2009

I went out in my boat today and did my best to support Earth Day 2009. I paddled from Holmes Pt on Lake Washington under beautiful sunny skies to Sand Pt Navel Station and picked up discarded junk along the shoreline! A half hour at the most is all it took to fill the hatches of my Romany! Too bad I didn't have room for the 55 gal barrel and the many tires I saw along the shoreline.

Here's what I picked up:

32 tennis balls, 1 fishing bobber, 2 soccer balls, 1 Happy Valentines' balloon, 1 Happy Birthday balloon, I plastic coffee mug, 1 foam cup holder, 8 aluminum cans, 37 plastic bottles, 1 glass perfume bottle, 1 white ladies shoe, 1 flip flop, 2 plastic grocery bags, 2 nylon ropes and 1 rubber glove..

WKC Paddle April 2009

Had the opportunity to lead a paddle for the local kayak club today. Four fellow paddlers joined for the Seahurst to Fauntleroy Washington Kayak Club trip. What a beautiful spring day, minimal breeze, some long awaited sunshine and 60 degree weather greeted today.

Along the way we saw the usual community of ducks and water fowl, a sea lion fishing for lunch and a young eagle getting harassed by a mob of crows. A good day indeed !

Chasing Gray Whales March 21 2009

Beth, Rob and I launched the boats at Langley, WA after visiting one of the fine coffee&pastry shops (nice caffeine and sugar buzz) and headed north along the east side of Whidbey Island looking for the gray whales that feed in the shallow waters of Saratoga Passage. A beautiful bright, sunny day with little wind and temps in the 50's, great paddling weather. After a 30-45 minute paddle north we cross the couple of miles of Saratoga Passage to the west side of Cameno Island, another favorite haunt for the feeding grays... After a rest stop to soak up the sun we paddled south along Cameno for several miles but no luck in spotting the big fish. One more stretch stop and we head back to Langley.

Here's the url for the site that tracks whales in the Puget Sound, Oregon and BC "http://www.orcanetwork.org/"

Salt Water Paddle Feb 18, 2009

Been a while since I added something on my blog. Lead a WKC trip from Salt Water State Park to Redondo and back. A group of 8 hardy souls on this first club paddle for '09. It's an early season, dust off the kayak for some folks while other join me every year... kind of a reunion paddle. Today it was a bit breezy with the 15-20kt wind coming from out of the north, made some fun wave action on the paddle back to Salt Water. All survied and we celebrated with High 5's having cheating death one more time... :-)

Lake Washington in January

Jan 24Th and the lake is flat calm. After a week of thick fog in the Puget Sound region this Saturday is absolutely beautiful, 30 degrees and sunny skies ! I paddled today from Holmes Point across the lake to Sand Point NS to meet up with six paddling friends to work on rolls, rescues, and various strokes. This group is headed to Wales in April so some 'wet' practice in the cold water is this sessions goal. Three hours after we started the light starting to fade so it's time for me to paddle the mile and a half back across the lake to my truck. Another good workout and great day to be able to take advantage of this great sport.

January 3rd welcome 2009 !

A light snow is falling again this morning as I head down to Mukilteo's city waterfront park. The city has really fixed up the park, brand new heated bathrooms are a nice touch in the winter time. Two well fed sea loins watch as I launched at 8:30 am. Paddled north to Whidbey Island then west to Possession Point. The ebbing current colliding with the southwestern 15k winds creates 1-2 foot waves and very nice paddling conditions. A 20 minute Possession Point stretch break, hot tea, a PBJ sandwich and I head back towards Mukilteo. Loads of wintering birds, a couple of seals and one lone eagle soring high above along with two fishing boats are the only 'traffic' one the water today.

Winter Paddle Around Orcas...... almost

Up at 2:30 am Sunday morning 12/28 and on the road by 3:15 to pick up my paddling partner Rob for our planned three day, two night paddle around Orcas Island. Took 10 minutes to get out of my subdivision due to the 10-15 inches on snow/slush on the roads, I-405 is clear so it's easy driving to Anacortes to catch the 5:30am ferry to Orcas Island, WA. We launch the boats at 7:50am from North Beach, what a beautiful, clear, crisp morning which is very unexpected. Due to a constant progression of snow storms over the past many weeks, I can't remember the last time I saw the sun actually shine in this part of the world. Our plan this morning is to paddle west, cross Presidents Channel and travel counter clockwise around Waldron Island. The island has few year round inhabitants, no stores, no electricity, yeah kind of remote. Paddling along the north side of the island in bright sunlight we saw several river otter's playing in the shallow crystal clear cold water, otters always look like they are having a blast. The snow covered hills of the Canadian islands to our northwest look pristine in the distance. We stopped and streched briefly on the south end of the island which is a nature preserve. There we saw seals, a couple of sea lions, a bunch of eagles and loads of wintering birds and best of all, bright sunlight !! We paddled about a 1/4 way around the east side of Waldron Island to check out the remains of limestone loading docks last used in the early 1900's. The island has beautiful rock formations and it is well worth the visit. From there we headed south to Jones Island State Park. The wind (15- 20K range) was out of the SW and opposed the current, so there where a few bumpy spots on the ride down to Jones which is our first day's destination. We stopped to stretch on the north end of the island which was protected from the wind but decided to paddle around and camp on the south side of the island just to take advantage of the one shelter on the island. A good plan, as by 2:00pm our tents where up and a light rain started to fall. No surprise that we had the entire island to ourselves. With a couple of hours of daylight we hiked all over the island, which still had some snow on hills and dense woods. Other than the raven's call and the eagles squawking above in the trees it was a wonderfully peaceful setting.

Last night the wind howled through the trees enough to wake me several times. As dawn broke it appeared the wind which was forecaster to be out of the southwest for our whole trip was more from the east southeast. The weather person did caution a fast moving low pressure system was heading towards the interior today with a good deal of associated rain.

Monday morning we are packed up and on the water at 9:00 am. We paddled towards Pole Pass on our way east towards Doe Bay, our second nights planned camp site. The slog across Westsound was energy consuming and took longer than we had planned due to the strong 15-20k winds and some pretty good sized wind waves hitting us head on . Stopped at the Orcas ferry landing and loaded our bellies with coffee, a great sandwich, apple and gator-aid from the grocery store. The temperature dropped noticeably during our 20 minute stay, just an hour before it was 46 degrees now it was 38 degrees. Left the ferry dock at 11:30am heading towards Doe Bay. The heavy rain with occasional hail is now coming down sideways as we near Foster Point. By the time we got to Diamond Point the wind was howling and we are fully exposed and totally committed, as there are few obvious places to bail out along the 20-30 foot high solid rock faced shoreline. The water is really jumping as the wind whipped up really big crazy wind waves. Crossing East Sound was definitely not possible so we decided the City of Eastsound was our destination this day. With the wind to our backs, it was brace left, brace right, stern rudder, stroke, brace, brace, brace, brace and more bracing for the next 3 1/2 to four miles with lots of looking over the shoulder just to see how big the next wave to contend with was going to be. Latter we discovered our timing was just right (?), we where in 40-45 mph winds with higher gusts that blew off the tops of the waves. I'm betting there was more than one Orcas resident ready to call the Coast Guard. Once safely tucked in East Sound and out of the wind's fury we finished our paddle landing at the city park near the Outlook Inn at 2:30ish. Even got a FREE ride from the Body Boat Blade Transportation Company to North Beach to pick up my truck. The other third of the 'round Orcas' trip will be scheduled in spring.. Trip covered about 33 miles.