Day 18–Cars, Ferries, Vans, and Kayaks

Note: Crossposted from my roadtrip blog.

Up at 6:00, then an hour drive to the ferry, and an hour ferry ride to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island.  Next time, I think I’ll just stay in Seattle and take the seaplane to the island.

I like the island’s attitude … a taxi with racks.

We met the van from the outfitter, Outdoor Odysseys, and took a twenty minute ride across the island to the put-in on the west coast.

A popular put-in at the state park on that side of the island and some of the major outfitters have racks of boats there full time.

(view in Google Earth)

We launched into some crystal clear (and cold) water, then rafted up with the guide and two other boats in the kelp bed.  Then we left the launch cove and started south down the coast. 

The flood-tide was running from south to north, so we had to hug the shore to stay out of the current.  This was hard for me to keep in mind, because a a rocky, lee shore with which I’m not familiar is a thing to give some distance.

But staying near shore gave us the opportunity to check out some things exposed by the low tide that had just ended.

The far shore, eight miles away, is Canada and the Olympia mountain range, after crossing the 900-foot deep channel.

After a couple hours, we arrived at the beach for lunch.  Outdoor Odysseys is one of the few operators that provide lunch – most others tell you to bring a sandwich. 

Fresh fruit, peanut butter and jelly, tomatoes, cucumbers and two kinds of hummus made up the lunch, all or mostly-all organic and local – pretty good, as well.

At the lunch beach, a seal came by.  One of three we saw and the only one I was able to get a picture of.

Also no picture of the ugly naked guy swimming and sunning himself.  He was frolicking in the water near the rocky headland and when he got out of the water, I said to myself, “That’s an odd looking bathing sui … nope, that’s his ass.”

Then he proceeded to flop down on the rocks and sun himself.

Back on the water we proceeded south some more, still hugging the shore and Aryn got a great underwater shot of two seastars.

For the return trip, we headed out from shore to pick up the still-flooding current.  The trip out there was pretty fun, with the current and back-eddies generating a lot of waves in unpredictable patterns.  I’d rate it a fast Class-II.

With the current, we hit 9 mph on the way back, according to the GPS. 

Then it was back in the van for the ride to Friday Harbor and the ferry.  We had time to eat again before the ferry left at 6:30.