whales and angels

We went to lovely San Juan Island this weekend to go sea kayaking. There were some serious currents in the Haro Strait, so we really had to work on the first half of the paddle up the western coast of the island. Things started a little slow w/ you basic sea creatures.



We stopped for lunch and to recover from nearly getting launched to alaska via the currents in the Strait. We'd come to grips that we prob were not going to be lucky enough to see the natural rockstars of the area- the orcas. Just as we hopped back into our kayaks, I heard someone whooping up on shore and saw the first orca. It caught us a little offgaurd b/c somehow these guys had managed to enter the strait and munch along w/out too much attention from the whale paparazzi (whale watching boats) that supposedly normally marks any pod in the area. It turns out that it's really hard to take a picture of a killer whale, especially from a kayak on the water, but here's a few glimpses that i was able to capture. we saw some breach, some doing some tail smacks, and so on. Was a very unique experience to get the pleasure to see these guys cruising through. We grouped up our kayaks and settled in to watch the pod swim by- with some of the closer whales probably coming as as close to 10o yds or so.




The Orcas are endangered, mostly due to dwindling salmon populations. So naturally, there are foolish people who drive their huge motor boats right into the middle of them. Anywho, they want to shut down the Haro Strait to boat traffic. Part of this legislation could also stop use of man powered crafts, i.e. kayaks. I can't imagine kayaks are problematic, of course or kayak rental place tells us this is ludicris.

Leaving San Juan on the ferry.

Sunset at Point of Deception. See post from above- we were there earlier in the yr.


Seattle's Seafair was this weekend too, so today (Sunday) we biked down to lake washington to see the Blue Angels fly.