Sea Kayak Trips Bulletin Board

trip report for 1/3/99

Posted By: tom
Date: Thursday, 6 January 2000, at 8:46 p.m.

This is installment two of four one day paddles that will be posted. The first one was posted on 01/05/00

Hi all, I live in the San Juan Islands of WA and a group of 3 or 4 of us do most of our paddling in the winter. I keep a log of my paddles and last year I started to write up the paddles in a more complete way. Needles to say I only did so with 4 of the trips so the rest are just distance memories and shorthand entries into a trip log.

The first outing was 12/31/98, than 1/3/99, 1/10/99 and finally 1/24/99.

Here they are. Hope they are enjoyable to one degree or another. tom

Trip Report for paddle on 1/3/99 Leon S, Jen N, Kieffer D, Shawna F, Tom C

Oh my God what a beautiful day it was on Jan 3rd 99. The sun was out, seas were calm and the tide change small. The forecast was for light wind all day and that is what we got. There was only a two foot flood, from 6 to 8 feet, during the time we were out. Clear skies, small tide change and little wind. A great way to start 1999.

This day saw five of us for the paddle: Leon-Capella, Shawna-Romany Explorer, Jen-Romany 16, Tom-Aquila, Kieffer-Meridian 16. The usual attire of farmer johns and paddle jackets or fuzzy rubber and paddle jackets. One little glitch was that Shawna did not paddle last week and Leon had used her Kokatat Tec Tour Anorak and wanted to use it again this week. She had to wrestle it away from him. A quick note on gear for some of you that like late fall, winter and early spring paddling. The Kokatat Tec Tour and the fuzzy rubber made by Wyoming Wear, they call it Splash Gear, we find to be very comfortable and functional. Enough said on gear except that Leon, who is not a gear freak ordered his own Tec Tour when Shawna would not let him wear hers.

We put in at North Beach a little before noon and paddled northeast to just beyond Parkers Reef. We then headed a bit more east and enjoyed calm seas and good company as we glided to Matia Island. With Sucia so close off to our left it is easy to find yourself being drawn to it almost like you are caught in its gravity. Your kayak drifts to the left and you pull it back to the right. It drifts to the left and you pull it back to the right. After a while your boat no longer drifts to the left and you know Sucia’s pull has been left behind as you slowly make your way east. As the crow flies Matia is about 3 miles from North Beach but with our loop around the north side of the reef we probably added about a 1/4 mile more to our take out on Matia.

With the clear crisp air the Northern Cascades were in our sites during the entire crossing from Orcas to Matia. Mt Baker dominating the mountain range with its 10,000 feet of grandeur that on clear, cold days you feel like you should be able to reach out and touch. As we paddled some distance off the southeast shore of Sucia Island we were able to enjoy looking into Fossil and Snoring Bays and between the Finger Islands that set within Echo Bay. We got to Matia at 2pm. We took out at a little pocket beach on the NW end of the island. We chose this as it would be the only cove with sun at this time of day during Jan.

We lounged in the sun during lunch and decided that it would be good to do toasted cheese sandwiches and tomato soup on a future paddle. We did this last year on winter paddles and it was a big hit. We already take a stove so all we need is a fry pan and the supplies. To spice up your toasted cheese may I suggest adding tomato slices, pepper, some kind of hot pepper, and a small amount of basil. There is nothing like a warm lunch, with good friends as you sit and talk on the beach while looking at the little boats that brought you across the water.

We left the beach at 3pm and started southeast to circumnavigate the island. Very nice. Very beautiful. Many first time paddlers to Matia are surprised at how different this island presents itself from Orcas, San Juan, Shaw, and Lopez where they might have already done some paddling. While most of the islands in the San Juans are basaltic, Matia is one of the few that is sandstone. The difference is so dramatic between the two types of formations it is like you are paddling in a completely different area. The northwest side of the island was definitely out of the sun. Paddling jackets were being zipped up and wool caps got pulled down. We got to the northern end of the island, almost where we started our circle, about 4pm and headed back to Orcas. With everyone warmed up and dark not far away what took us 2 hours to paddle on the way over took one hour going home. We hit the beach at 5pm and were loaded up and ready to jet by 5:20.

A great day. Clear skies, cool but not cold and calm seas. As usual for this time of year we did not see any other kayaks. We did see one sailboat. tom

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