Great Day on the Water

By -
Today was an ambitious day as I had plans to locate and crawl into a cave, then go kayaking.  It turned out to be pretty easy.  The cave was full of water so I was not able to enter.  There is so much water running off the hillsides here.  I am not sure how long it will be before the water has drained.  I will just have to keep checking.  I hope to try and locate some more local caves on the San Juan Island and Orcas Island. 

Kayaking was next on the list.  It was a nice day.  Not too cold, a bit of fog and no wind.  Lyle and I unloaded kayaks, suited up and took off.  Pretty quite out there today.  We were the only ones on the water and other than a bird and a few seals, that is all we saw.  Bald Eagles seemed to be the most common sight of the day.  

Here is a list of birds from the day.

*Bald Eagles *White Wing Scooter *Common Merganser
*Buffleheads *Kingfisher *Harlequin Ducks
*Double Crested Cormorants *Ruddy Turnstone (surprised to see)

After the day paddle Lyle and I came home and started to brew our first batch of home brew. I'll have to let you know about that later.  It has been a funny process of so far.  Seems we have a problem with the brew pot boiling over.  Smells Great!

Here are a few pics from today.


Here is the small entry to the cave.  I know it does not look like it but it is big enough for me to get through.  But it was full of water.  I hope to get in as soon as the water recedes.


Getting ready to have some fun.


Harbor Seals checking us out.


Lyle is rocking his new dry suit.


Kind of a gray day.  But the water conditions were great.


Good Night!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Morning Kayak Lessons

By -
Image
A good start to the day when you wake up and see the sun and having to get on the water to teach kayak lessons.  Though it was cold outside, I could tell it was going to warm nicely once the sun had time to do its work.  After a cup of coffee it was time to meet Lauren (my student for the class) and load the gear and get on the water.  The water was perfect, flat calm and good for learning the basics.  Lauren has taken classes before and it pretty up to speed on self rescue.  So we were out to work on kayak handling skills.  Mainly driving home proper edging, body movement and blade placement. After the lesson it was off to grab a bite to eat and get back outside.  I of course headed out to check in the Red Tailed Hawks (RTHs).  I ran into Monika again,  http://orcawatcher.blogspot.com/  , who once again got great images on the RTHs in flight. She got some images of the pair together.  I was able to locate the Rufous Morph further south. There was a visitor with me in town from London
Read more

Astral Greenjacket Review

By -
Image
I have finally spent a bit more time in the Astral Greenjacket and I have decided it is time to go ahead with my finally review of the product. My previous jacket was a Stohlquist Brik .  Which is a side entry style jacket.  I was really happy with performance and fit.  I did have a zipper problem which was a not really taken care of by Stohlquist.  I was teaching a class and was performing a "Cowboy/Back Deck" rescue and the zipper broke.  When I contacted service dept to get it fixed they wanted me to pay shipping and charge for the repair of a new jacket.  I passed on the factory repair and did the best I could do. I do not recommend that.  Next issue I had was there is simply no storage on the vest.  Not that big of a deal since I try to not load myself with stuff.  Overall it was a good fit and a clean front making it snag free while messing about the deck of my sea kayak. On to the Greenjacket !   My use of the Greenjacket is for sea kayak guiding and personal kayaking
Read more

Friday Harbor Bike Rentals

By -
Image
It has been awhile since my last post. So I thought I would write a bit on the latest happenings. Spring has arrived on San Juan Island and I am back to work early this season. Kayak tours kicked off a bit sooner than normal this year. I assume the lack of good snow in the mountains and the early sunshine has something to do with it. So with Spring here we ( Discovery Sea Kayaks ) are open and running kayak tours. This is a great time to visit San Juan Island for a kayak tour. With less people on island there is a very charming small town feel. On the water the wildlife encounters can vary. Some days you might encounter killer whales other days watch as a pair of eagle fly over head. Last season we started renting bikes from our shop in downtown Friday Harbor. Our location is perfect for walking on the ferry and then renting a bike when you arrive in town. Being in the heart of town and close to the ferry makes it easy. I have all the bikes clean and ready to be rented. This se
Read more