Picture of the week

Lime Kiln Lighthouse

Captured this photograph with the sun setting through the lighthouse beacon.  The Lime Kiln Lighthouse is located on the west side of San Juan Island, part of Washington, north of Puget Sound.  Orca whales can often be seen from this point, but unfortunately I was not so lucky on this visit. Photo-ops here were limited to some landscape, harbor seals, and a few porpoises in the distance.

I visited this location with two other friends the night before a 5 day kayaking expedition around these islands. This trip was organized by the Alder Creek Kayak Company based in Portland.  Through this trip via the two team leaders (Andrew and Steve) we learned the essential skills necessary for expedition style kayaking, being self sufficient, carrying our food, water and all necessary camping gear. We were also taught navigational skills, route planning factoring in the currents and weather, longer duration paddling skills, dealing with challenging weather and water conditions, including rescue techniques, and beach landing/launching techniques in the surf. 

We started the trip from Friday Harbor, camping the first night at Griffin Bay near the southern end.  After enduring a sustained rain the first night and next morning, we then headed off in attempt to round Cattle Point and head up on the more exposed southern side heading toward the northwest for a 15 mile slug up to the San Juan campground.  Despite having a favorable ebb tide to help up us the first half of this leg, we faced 15 to 25 knot headwinds with 3 to 4 foot waves.  After a couple of hours making little progress up the coast around the point, we made an unplanned beach landing through the surf to take a break, have lunch, and wait to see if the conditions would calm down to make better progress.  After relaunching into the surf (which was quite an experience by itself), the team leader Andrew decided after about 30 minutes of more paddling that hitting our planned destination that night would not be feasible with the current weather conditions.  We then aborted, turning around and heading back to spend a second night at the Griffin Bay camp site after fighting the wind and current most of the way back. This required "hand-railing" closer to the shoreline in order to take advantage of eddy currents for reducing the paddling effort and exposure from the wind.  By the time the group got back to camp around 5:30 pm, after leaving that morning around 9am, we were all thoroughly exhausted.   But at least the weather had cleared, giving us a chance to dry out our camping gear that we had more hastily packed wet that morning.  We jokingly reflected on which we preferred: calmer waters under rain, or windy drier conditions.  The choice was easy, taking rain anytime versus dealing with the wind and rougher seas that come with it.

The rest of the trip was easier with friendlier weather and more protected waters. With the change in route plans, we headed north, camping in Indian Cove on Shaw Island for the third night, and then at the southern end of Jones Island for the fourth night. The last night on Jones Island was my favorite, with a very pleasant camping area and a small protected cove in order to practice self and assisted rescue techniques.  After dinner, some of us also did a sunset paddle around the island, while a couple of the others elected for a walk to explore the island by foot. After the earlier grueling experience in our attempt around Cattle Point, the sunset paddle around Jones Island was a great way to cap the trip on a more peaceful note.  With our boats unloaded from the camping gear and food, our kayaks felt much more nimble and fast, allowing us to get around the entire island in 40 minutes, while drafting and joking around with "pit manuevers" on each others kayaks. After a relaxing sleep, on the fifth day we headed back to Friday Harbor, via a relatively short and easy 5~6 mile paddle, going with an ebb tide all the way back.  We then packed up, said our goodbyes, and still had time to catch the early afternoon ferry for Anacortes after buying lunch and enjoying some beers with our two guides.

Looking back at this trip, it was quite memorable and one that I am grateful to have experienced.  Despite the difficulties on the second day and having to abort our target destination for that night, the experience and learning from that effort and the rest of the trip will be unforgettable. I feel this adventure has given me valuable experience and confidence in how to deal with more adverse and unforeseen conditions that can pop-up during expedition style kayaking travel. Andrew and Steve from Alder Creek Kayak were also terrific guides for this trip. Their experience, skills, and friendliness made the trip both enjoyable and a productive learning experience. Under their leadership, I did not really worry about the uncertainties that can come with this type of travel.  It turns out, we were the pilot group for this trip from Alder Creek. And after talking about this with the others, everyone believes it was a great success and one that will be repeated more in the future. It was also helpful that everyone had a positive can-do attitude and proficient in their paddling skills.

As far as photography was concerned, I packed my Canon 70D with the 100-400mm IS L f/4.5-5.6 telephoto lens in a dry bag, stowed in the rear hatch right behind me. My plan was to use it sparingly in case of some more photo worthy opportunities occured, such as a pod of orcas.  But unfortunately, no such conditions presented themselves on this trip.  Also given the skill level of the team and paddling requirements that came with this, pausing to pull this setup out would not be that practical without slowing down the pace and progress of the whole group. 

My other form of documenting this trip was via a GoPro Hero 3+ Silver edition camera mounted on the deck of my boat, far enough in front to not interfere with my paddling.   I used an 8" articulating arm in order to provide a bit more clearance such that the image would not be too dominated by the front hull of the boat.  This worked out okay, but the adhesive for the GoPro mount to the deck came loose during the stormy conditions on the second day.  This was resolved with some "Shoe Goo" adhesive from Andrew that does a much better job, keeping the camera mount intact for the rest of the trip.  The biggest challenge for the GoPro is stretching the battery life by sparingly use of the camera.  I brought 3 fully charged batteries, but each only lasts for about 30-40 minutes worth of video capture at 1080p and 60fps.  By the end, I had filled up a 32G micro-SD card and while burning through most of the third battery.  The images shown above are either frame captures off these video sequences, or still shots while hand holding the GoPro on land. In the near future I plan on posting an edited video sequence of this trip based on this footage.

All content and images are property of Stephen Fischer Photography, copyright 2014.  Last updated: 8/4/2014   ()