Kayak camping in the San Juans. Wheeled the kayak onto the ferry to Friday Harbor and then paddled to Jones Island for the night.
Went with 2 experienced couples. Great weather. Spectacular camp site.
I learned a lot about my fast kayak. It can carry a lot of weight. On the way out we filled the kayak completely, had to push down the gear to get the hatches on. I weighed well north of 400lbs but the boat handled great. This boat is not comfortable going slow – in any kind of short waves it needs to be moving 3kts or above to crest the wave period (with a very round hull that is only 21″ wide). With that much weight it rides as flat as a train at speed, which is good, but it takes getting used to because it means you pierce straight through every wave and they all hit you in the chest – kind of like a submarine at surface.
WWTA Campsite - kayak among logs on left
Jones Island is one of the islands in the San Juans that is completely a state park or some sort of reserve. The original plan was to visit Yellow Island which is super-protected and can only be visited during certain hours, no food or ‘bio’ behavior can happen there. Did not happen for us. On to Jones, we had the whole west side of the island to ourselves (and the deer and dozens of creepy raccoons), the only other people camped there heard the weather forecast and decided to go home early when it was still safe to do so. Turns out that they returned during the worst conditions the whole weekend.
To console me for not finishing the Coho on time for this trip I bought myself a new tent (tortured logic I know). REI QD T2Plus. It is remarkable what technological advances have been made. Even though it rained several hours and was windy and cold outside that night, I was warm comfortable and dry in a 4lb tent that almost fits in my car glovebox. Now I have to camp more to amortize that expense! The tent is highly recommended.
Hiked around the island (saw the native cactus, that is how dry it is in the Olympics rain shadow) and played with the deer. Interesting discussion with interesting travel mates that evening. On the way back we took the safest way (because of me, sorry gang) and managed to catch an earlier (late) ferry. You have to love a town where you can run down Main Street in the middle of the day wearing a wetsuit and booties pulling an overweight 18 foot kayak and the only comments you get are ‘nice paddle!’
Have been looking forward to this trip too much for the last 2 months, but it did not disappoint. Hope to do more trips in the new boat. Will post to Garmin later but for now: Click here if you use Google Earth
- Jones Island deer
