Thursday, June 28, 2012

Kayaking Thwarted No More!

I woke up in a nice comfy bed at the early hour of 5:00am. I had to pee. As I was going back to bed, I noticed the sun was coming up behind Mt. Baker. So, instead of going back to bed, I pulled out my camera and started taking photos (see the earlier post). I ended up not going back to sleep.

After a delicious breakfast of steel-cut oats with fruit and walnuts, we pulled out the kayaks to go out for a paddle in the Dungeness Bay. Yay! I was finally getting to go kayaking (on my Coast bike tour I tried twice to kayak without success--one day it was too windy and he other time no one showed up)!

The water was like glass. No wind and the tide gently coming in. My weather karma was in full force! I was in a single kayak (a nice red one). We paddled toward the old pier and where the Dungeness River empties into the Bay. We tried paddling up the river and we did make it far enough to see four juvenile eagles sitting on a branch. I think their names were John, Paul, George, and Ringo. We let the river push us back out to the Bay. We paddled back, stopping for various photo-ops. The mountains (both High Cascades and Olympics) were beautiful. It was a great paddle! The wind was just starting to ripple the water when we got back.

We brought the boats back to the boat house where they could be rinsed off.

We got all our bike stuff put together. Carol was letting Sue carry her stuff to Casey's in Port Angeles in her car. We had some lunch, then hit the road.

We rode back to the Olympic Discovery Trail which we took all the way to Port Angeles. It was very cool. We rode to Railroad Park. The railroad bridge over the Dungeness River was very nice.

There were some steep downhills and uphills, but we were warned ahead of time of a spot where we could get off to avoid a really steep gratuitous section. Which is not to say we didn't go up some pretty steep hills. In fact, one was so steep that both Christian and Carol had to walk. I only made it up because I refuse to walk. Of course I was wheezing like mad by the time I got to the top!

We came along the water and saw an otter come out of the water with something in its mouth. We tried to see where it went, but it disappeared.

We made it to Casey and Brigid's house where we are camped in the backyard. We've had a delicious dinner of leftover pork loin (brought to Port Angeles by Sue--along with Carol's stuff).

Brigid is playing guitar and singing. A great day! Tomorrow Christian and I are planning to ride up to Hurricane Ridge. Carol will take a rest day.

Here's some great photos. The Discovery Trail is so awesome that even the benches have squeegees to clean off any water!

2 comments:

Marsha said...

Great photos...

TrevorW�� said...

Sounds like a great trip...fantastic images..!!

-Trevor