Paddling Around San Juan Island - Part 2

This is a continuation of an earlier post of a 5-day sea kayak trip I was on recently around San Juan Island. I covered the first day of the trip and spent an entire paragraph on our guide, Sandy. I hope my traveling companions will post some other 'Sandy-isms' that I may have forgotten. So, the journey continues.

Day 2 - I slept for almost 12 hours making up for the lack of sleep the night before and I woke up on Tuesday fully rested and ready to get out and look for orcas. Allen was already up and had been up for a couple of hours being that he was the one person from the east coast (N. Carolina). That night, there were 2 parties at the campground and Allen laughed at how one sound of a tent's zipper opening up at 5:00 am started a series of consecutive zipping noises from other areas of the campground as, one-by-one, people made their way to the lone latrine in the area. This campground was posh compared to what is up in the Great Bear Rainforest. While we have small huts to offer as shelter, there is no such thing as a civilized latrine, with toilet paper and hand sanitizer, nonetheless!! The sites were complete with firepits and picnic tables....I was camping in style! Anyway, one-by-one we woke up to a fantastic, clear morning with banana & walnut pancakes on the menu accompanied by big pots of french press coffee. Mmmmm....why does food always taste so much better outside? Our plan for the day was to paddle clockwise around Stuart Island.

We headed out by 9:30, I think and we leisurely paddled out the inlet and hung a left. Along the way, we saw harbor seals, oyster catchers, eagles, and pigeon guillemots that I liked watching because of their bright, red legs. But, the highlight of that day were the orcas we spotted in the distance (across Boundary Pass). We're guessing (and, it was confirmed later) that they were the Transients because we spotted maybe 4 in that group. So, I also learned that one of the biggest differences between the J/K/L pods and the Transients is that the J/K/L pods are salmon eaters while the Transients eat marine mammals. And, that members of pods have figured out to mate with members of other pods. Funny how "nature seems to figure itself out" (a common remark made by the biologists).

Unfortunately, that was our only glimpse of the orcas on our trip :-( But, I continue to track the encounters on the Center for Whale Research Site and plan to head back up soon, maybe on my bike because it turns out that there are special campsites for bikers/hikers/paddlers and they can't turn you away. Anyway, that day we paddled about 13 nautical miles around the island and the day before we had only paddled about 7 nautical miles. Nothing too daunting...we were saving that for later!

I'm looking at my notes and I wished I could recreate each night for you because it was a hoot! For example, the conversation on our second night sashayed around topics like how in the Ozarks, people serve the placentas to their kids on their first birthday. Followed by a lengthy discussion on liver, tongue, and lung soup (mmmm....my appetite was building by the moment). Then, they talked about carcasses which rolled on to a debate on mayonnaise (of course....I see the connection...huh?) and the differences (or rather similarities) between Helman's, Best, and Real. For dinner that night, we noshed on the most garlicky hummus spread I've ever had. It was great - this wasn't a picky group at all....thing were never garlicky enough or spicy enough. I could've just eaten the hummus and crackers for dinner and be good but, dinner was actually vegetable curry served over brown rice. Yeah, for the second night in a row, I had eaten myself into a food coma. Do you see why I had to go on a bike ride the moment I got back home? Sandy continued on with her one-woman show and always had to have the last word in. That night, we enjoyed watching the ospreys hanging out by our site, and I think some hummingbirds came out later. Yes, I think it was Dave, who knew exactly what type of hummingbird it was before it quickly zipped out of view. I just observed in amazement....I'm lucky enough to have remembered their names by the end of the first night (hahaha). Later on, we had some bats fly around our campsite.

Allen struggled to stay up past 9:00 that night. His tent was placed perfectly at the site so that he could lay down but still be part of the conversation when it was around a topic that he was interested in. I forgot to mention how on the first night, we thought he had gone to bed and then Paul and Dave started talking about some obscure topic. Zip, zip, zip....all of sudden, Allen pokes his head out of a small opening of his tent to give his $0.02 on the topic. If any of you guys remember what that topic was, please let me know! It was just hilarious: a) first it was such an obscure topic to begin with, and; b) all that we could see was Allen's head....it was like the floating head on one of those late night shows...I think it's Late Night with Conan O'Brien where he has a skit with the floating head of knowledge which is what came to mind when that happened. Guess you had to be there, but it was seriously funny that first night.

Day 3 - That day, we paddled clockwise around John's Island and then had lunch on Gossip Island. Originally we were going to spend one more night on Stuart Island, but, quite frankly, I was done paddling in and out of Reid Harbor. It was a good 5 mile paddle round-trip and it felt like it was getting longer. The weather that afternoon looked great after lunch, we decided to pack up our campsite, load up the boats, and paddle across to Posey Island for the night before continuing down the west side of San Juan Island the following day.

By the time we packed up and started paddling, the wind had significantly picked up and we seriously hauled-ass to get across. That was pretty tough and it took us a over an hour to paddle the 6 miles. Posey Island was all of maybe 2 acres and we had it all to ourselves. This is also the night where Sandy told us about the most famous guide in the area (she's second). Testosterone Tim (of San Juan Kayak Expeditions). I'm not even going to bother and hyperlink the name of his company because I've heard nothing but bad things about him. I guess he doesn't make his customer wear PFDs and will sometimes leave his group on Posey Island while he heads out to Roche Harbor for some drinks. I heard about him before the trip and I guess all those rumors are true. And, yet, he continues to run his business. Go figure.

That night on Posey Island, we also heard the cheesy music, followed by a cannon shot, and more cheesy music. A tradition proudly carried on by the 'yachties.' I imagined Ted Knight's character in Caddyshack all decked out in his navy blue blazer and ceremoniously lighting the cannon each night. However, the sunset was amazing that night. This was a picture I took after dinner and was totally intrigued by the cottonball shaped clouds. For dinner, we had vegetarian chili with jalapenoes on the side so we can make our chili as spicy as we wanted. It was the perfect dinner for that night because the winds had picked up and it was probably the coldest night on our trip. OK....to be continued on the final post.