Kayaking the Salish Sea

We were camped near the town of Anacortes, on Fidalgo Island, on the Salish Sea in upper Washington. We thought about making the two-hour drive to Mount Baker's Artist Point. But we had read that such a destination wasn't worth the trip if it was foggy, and we woke up to heavy cloud cover. So we went to Plan B, which included going to church at a local church just a few miles down the road. Then we thought about putting our kayak on the Salish Sea, but we were a little worried about the possibility of sharp oyster beds that could slice inflatable boats to pieces. Interestingly, when we googled, "Kayaking near Anacortes in inflatable kayak" the first thing google found was our own blog post when we had kayaked here eight years ago.

We didn't want to kayak at the very same place, so Mark googled again. The second search brought up kayak tours from Whidbey Island. The tours started at Bowman Bay, and guided kayakers around the shore line by Rosarito Beach and Northwest Island.  We found those places on a map and decided that we could do that on our own.

Mark also checked the tide schedule, as we didn't want to get caught up in any abrupt tide pulls. We found an unusually short time change from high to low and almost no height change between the two this afternoon.

Another source showed the tide information graphically. While the early morning low tide was quite low, there was almost no tide change in the afternoon. We were getting much better at understanding tides, and that was quite a learning curve for a couple of land-locked travelers. After doing the research, it looked like this was a great day to kayak on the Salish Sea.

After church, we headed again to Deception Pass State Park and purchased another daily Discover Pass. We found a parking place on a pretty Sunday afternoon and put our boat in at the Bowman Bay kayak launch at 1:30.

Bowman Bay had a few other boaters on the water. One was a yacht-sized boat in the distance. Another was a paddle boarder checking his crab traps.

As we followed the shore of the state park, we could see hikers on the trail high above the water.

When we looked out to sea, there was water as far as we could see. Before we left, we also checked the winds, another big factor on a sucessful day on the salt water. With light winds of 5-10 miles per hour, we thought there should be no problem with paddling our way back to our put-in spot.

It wasn't long before we started seeing our first sea life. We saw several kinds of jellyfish floating in the salt water around us.

This jellyfish looked a little like a fried egg cooking on the surface of the Salish Sea.

 We dipped a paddle into the water beside it just for a size reference. The water was quite cold and we didn't see many swimmers. But we weren't sure we would want to swim amongst these big jellyfish anyway.

We paddled closer to the shore, and saw more hikers on the trail at Rosario Head--a rocky peninsula that juts out into the sea.

We paddled around the corner to Rosario Beach, known for its good tide pooling. We could look down through the clear water to see the tide pools. Even though they were above water at this morning's 5:30 a.m. low tide, now they were under six feet of sea water.

We saw more wildlife as we paddled around some of the islands further from the shore. The cormorants posed for pictures while we paddled by.

But we were even more interested in the wildlife laying on the small rocky islands in the distance.  We had paddled 1.5 miles by now, and we had built up our confidence to move further from the shore. What was laying on that rock island?

It was a group of harbor seals! Some were taking their Sunday afternoon naps, while others were watching us from a distance. We didn't want to paddle too close and disturb them.

Then we watched as a kayaker came from the opposite direction, and paddled right beside their rock.

While some seals continued snoozing on their backs, others slid into the water and kept an eye on the passing kayaker.

We had our good camera with us, so we could zoom in for better pictures while we still kept our distance.

It was fun to zoom in on some of the seals swimming in the water.

As we passed, they gave us looks that reminded us of puppy-dog-eyes.

What fun to get to spend time with these gentle creatures in their natural habitat!

Wow! After that seal encounter, Denisa couldn't wipe that smile off her face.

The same could be said of Mark. 

With the rocky shore line, the cloudy blue sky, wildlife sightings, and the delightful temperature we had wandered into another of God's wonders!

Mark just mentioned, "Now all we need is an eagle," when we spotted that signature white head in a tree near the shore.

Then we spotted a fin rolling out of the water. We had kayaked into a pod of porpoises!

The sea water was very calm, and that made it easy to spot the fins as they broke the surface of the water. We sat in the kayak and watched like this for a very long time. With temperatures in the 70s and no wind, it was the perfect day for a kayak trip on the Salish Sea!

While most of the fins were some distance away, some surfaced closer to our kayak.

We learned that seeing fish leap out of the water was a good sign. That fish was probably being chased by a porpoise.

Sure enough, we would usually see another fin break the surface of the water after a flying fish sighting.

You can see the brim of Denisa's hat in the bottom left corner of the picture below as a measure of how close the porpoises were surfacing to our boat.

The sea water was amazingly clear. We could look straight down to see the kelp forest below us. We had to say that the rounded knees of the kelp vines were hard to differentiate from the seal heads swimming in the water.

We found another eagle sitting in another tree.

By this time, we had been paddling and sitting in the kayak for almost three hours. While our old inflatable kayak seats were comfortable, we were ready to stand up for a while. We found a small beach surrounded by rock walls that looked like a good place to beach the kayak.

The only way to get to this beach was to arrive by boat. It was a good place to have a picnic and stretch our legs.

Not surprisingly, Mark stretched his legs and used them to scramble over the big rocks that book-ended the beach.

Have we mentioned that we loved kayaking on the Salish Sea today?

After that rest, we were back in the boat, paddling still farther along that tall rocky shore line.

When we rounded a curve and could see the buildings of the town of Anacortes in front of us, we decided this was a good turn-around spot. This turning spot was Biz Point, about 3.5 miles from where we started paddling.

We loved that we paddled through that pod of hunting porpoises again. We saw dozens before the day was over.

We couldn't have asked for calmer winds. The sea water was like glass on our way home. We didn't need to worry about the tide or the winds on this Sunday.

We paddled around the seal rocks, taking more pictures.

If you look closely, you can see that the adult seal on the rocks was looking down on the seal pup sticking his nose out of the water on the left.

Denisa's arms weren't tired from paddling. But they were tired of holding up the camera to take all those pictures.

Some more of the pictures of the seals, holding their heads and tails in the air . . .

and looking over their shoulders at these kayakers that were so fascinated with them.

The clouds stayed with us all day, and we could see some of the San Juan islands in the cloudy distance.

When we made the final turn towards home, we could once again see the shore line of Bowman Bay where we had started this kayak trip hours ago.

We spotted an adolescent eagle in the trees above our put-in spot. What a rich day of finding the sea life around the Salish Sea! By the time we made it back to Bowman Bay, we had paddled 6.7 miles, spent over five hours on the water, and took hundreds of pictures.

We dried off the kayak and put it away. Then we headed to Deception Bridge. This is the famous bridge that we had driven over when we first arrived to the island yesterday. 

Unlike the hordes of tourists we found when we drove over the bridge on a Saturday afternoon, we found it was easy to find a parking spot and we had the bridge to ourselves on a Sunday evening.

Kayakers are warned not to go under the Deception bridge because of the tricky currents and rip tides in this cove. We heeded those warnings today. But from the looks of those calm waters, we could have kayaked here this beautiful day.

We have kayaked some beautiful places during this trip. But this one might top them all with its salty beauty and wildlife. We have been blessed again! Maybe this trip will show up in our next google search for advice on kayaking in an inflatable boat on the Salish Sea.