Day 1 of Kayaking Trip

Sara and West were our guides for the trip. There ended up being 10 people scheduled for this trip; John and Annette, husband and wife from Cashmere, Washington; Jentzen and Melissa, husband and wife from Los Angeles, California; Jeff and Shereen, friends from church from Los Angeles and Huntington Beach, California; and the four of us.

All of our stuff was loaded on the van.

Judy inspected the kayaks. We were all loaded in the van and the adventure began.

San Juan County Park was where we launched the kayaks.

The first thing was to get the kayaks down to the beach

and all the camping supplies.

We transferred our stuff to the two dry bags that were provided to us and hauled down to the shore. We looked at all that stuff

and wondered it how it was all going to fit in five double kayaks and two single kayaks but it did with room left over.

Then we were “fitted” in to our kayaks,

the person in the back had petals to control the rudder while the person in the front also had pegs to put their feet on but they were just for leverage. Then it was back up to the grass to have a paddling lesson.

We also got safety instructions and what to do if we had whales get close to us. Time to get all geared up and in to the kayak,

Susan and Traci were in one kayak and

Judy and Ginger were in one.

Right outside of the park a few of us saw a couple of Orca whales but they were going away from us and very far away so hard to see. Our first day was a 13 mile trip to the campground with a lunch stop a little over half way at Posey Island.

The first half of the trip was mostly along shore with some short channel crossings. We saw lots of sea birds and seals.

After lunch we had a three mile channel crossing with lots of boats, we were glad we were fueled up for it. The water was very smooth and the crossing went great.

On the way to the campground we passed more sea birds, seals,

and a couple of Bald Eagles.

After arriving State Park Campground we had to unload all the kayaks and haul everything up to the campsite.

Then we had to set up our tents.

Time for dinner which was smoked salmon fettuccine

with apple crisp cooked in the Dutch oven for dessert. We slept well that night.