Picture of the week

Kayaks at sunset

Sea kayaks moored along the shore of Jones Island at sunset.  I camped there as part of a 5 day sea kayaking trip through the San Juan Islands last June with two other friends John and Randy.  This is my second such trip among these islands within Puget Sound between the state of Washington and Canada. 

I am getting caught up on some previous trips, posting images from this one through the San Juan's that got preempted by my longer 3 week Continental Divide adventure motorcycle ride that immediately followed this one.

For this particular trip, we started at Friday Harbor at San Juan Island, and then traveled via sea kayak to Shaw Island, Jones Island, Stuart Island via Spieden, back to Jones via a stop at Cactus, and then back to Friday Harbor.  The weather for this particular trip was good, with only a few days with a bit stronger winds.  The tide in Spieden Channel was a bit tricky, but the most difficult passage was getting back from Stuart to Jones via the New Channel and its junction with the main channel to the east.  This required careful timing with the tides, some strenous paddling for a few sustained hours, and temporarily landing or sheltering in a few coves along the way to await for more favorable conditions.  Of the islands we visited, my favorite continues to be Jones Island, while Shaw is also pretty good, albiet with more development.

For this trip, I brought my Canon EOS 70D with a 100-400mm L f/4.5-5.6 mk2 and EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 lenses with a dry bag to protect them from the elements.  I also mounted a GoPro Hero 4 to the deck of my kayak for some video and still captures while paddling.  One of my objectives for this trip was to capture some quality images of Orcas, but for the second time I struck out, not evening getting a single sighting.  Reading about this after returning, apparently this is not a  surprise as the Orca population in Puget Sound has dropped signficantly due a crash in the salmon fishery that has historically sustained these apex predators of the sea.  In general I noticed the level of sea life in this area to be a lot less abundant to that which I have experienced in the coastal waters of Alaska or California.

All content and images are property of Stephen Fischer Photography, copyright 2010-2018.  Last updated: 4/14/2018   ()