There are very few things on our trip that we decided to do for sure from the outset. One of them was to go see Orca whales in Washington. My Aunt Kathy recommended an outfit that went out of the islands off of the coast of Washington where you could spot Orca whales. I wanted to see them.
In the evening after hiking the Deer Lake trail, we stopped at a sweet coffee shop in Port Angeles. Our mission was to find a spot on one of the Orca whale tours for tomorrow. After looking at various tour websites, Joey decides that the tour boats would be 'too lame' for him. He starts looking at little inflatable zodiac tour boats. I think those are insane.
Eventually I come across an Orca kayaking tour. This would be cool - even if we didn't see Orcas, we'd be kayaking in the ocean - and if we did see Orcas, it would be nuts because we'd be in kayaks.
At this point it's about 9pm, and I'm not so sure if this place even had spots open for us to join their tour. I call them up and the owner of the company answers the phone. He was a super nice guy, we explain we'd like to join in on a tour for tomorrow, and he tells us that the group he has booked has 9 participants - if he took on two more he'd need another guide. He tells us he'll call up another guide and see if they'd like the work and he'd call us back to let us know.
Not even 15 minutes later, the guy calls us back and says another guide would be happy to work tomorrow - so we were free to join in on the tour. We enthusiastically agree to join the tour. Then I ask him if it is even resonable for us to get to the tour by 10:30 am the next morning. The thing was, we were in Port Angeles, and the tour started from Friday Harbor.
The geography off of the Olympic peninsula is something like this: The peninsula is pretty large, and north of Seattle. To get to Seattle you can drive around the edge of the peninsula - but you have to backtrack south a bit and you are in for a 3 hour ride. North of the peninsula are a series of islands. To reach them you need to take a ferry. We were sort of in the middle of the peninsula, and needed to reach one of the northern-most islands.
Clark, the tour owner was awesome. He came up with a perfect itinerary for us to reach the tour in time. We would need to take the 6:30am ferry from Port Townsend (about 2 hours from Port Angeles). Then we'd need to drive the length of the Whidbey island (about an hour), to reach our next ferry by 9am. That ferry we could just "walk-on" and ride for an hour to reach Port Friday. We'd likely arrive about 30 minutes before the tour and it allowed some time for the ferry to be late. He even recommended a place to camp after the tour.
So that's what we did.
We woke up at 4am - for those of you who know our sleeping habits - that was a feat for both of us. We rolled out of the national forest site we had found the night before and made our way through the fog to the ferry terminal. We were required to arrive a half an hour before departure - and they recommended that oversized vehicles arrive even earlier. We got there an hour before-hand and were the first car in line to board the ferry.
We were pretty groggy - the toll booth didn't open for about 15 minutes after we got there, and when we finally spoke to the operator, he seemed pretty amused by our reactions. He asked if we had any gas containers (which you could see clearly on the roof of the van) and we said yes. He handed us a red ticket to keep on the dashboard. Then he asked if we had any propane, and we said no. He went ahead and handed Joey the propane ticket, and asked us if we were sure we didn't have propane. Then we remembered we did actually have cooking propane...
We boarded the ferry - it was pretty exciting! We had been worried that we would be too big, and have to stow the bikes. When the semi pulled in next to us on the ferry loading dock, we figured we would be okay.
Honestly, I fell asleep when Joey drove across the next island. He was a trooper.
We got to the next ferry terminal - where the ferry was late. We waited in line with lots of other people who looked like they were also going on whale watching tours. Everyone was bustling in the ferry building grabbing brochures and talking excitedly about the day ahead. I think Joey and I must have looked like zombies.
The next ferry crossing let us take a nap before reaching our destination.
In Friday Harbor, we had no problem finding the van that was there to pick up our group - right next to the ice cream stand. We rode through town and got a nice tour and history lesson of the island. We got to the kayak launch beach and our tour guide told us to pile out of the van as fast as possible - there were Orcas off-shore!
She had spotted them from the road - so we ran up to the point through some trees and spotted the pod of Orcas! There must have been a dozen Orcas that had surfaced to get some air. They were spectacular!
The only sad part was the reason the guide had spotted them was the zoo of tour boats that were crowding the Orcas. We were amazed at how many boats were circling the pod. We could hear their loud engines and "wa-wa-wa" of the tour guides on the loudspeaker from the shore. It was nuts. Apparently the boats need to stay 200 yards from the Orcas at all times, and it looked like they were cutting the boundary a bit close. There was a research vessle nearby - a sailboat, much quieter - and they were much further from the whales.
The kayak tour was already a success! I was happy, I saw Orca whales, and I didn't even bother them by making lots of engine noise. I happily watched them quietly from the shore.
After the stellar introduction, we geared up and got a quick kayaking lesson. We were going to be in two-person kayaks. This was new for me. I've been in a lot of single person kayaks, but no two-person ones. Our friend Hans calls these things "break-up boats". We've heard a few stories from our friends about adventures on these boats ending pretty poorly. We both sort of chuckled about the break-up boats, but then again - we were on not much sleep.
I ended up letting Joey steer the boat. I would just be providing rowing power, and he'd be directing the boat. This ended up great - Joey zoomed us towards kelp beds, and the waves - but was preoccupied enough with figuring out how to steer we didn't get into too much trouble.
Our kayak guides were really great too - they told us all sorts of interesting facts about kelp and the local ecosystems. They pointed out bald eagle nests along the shoreline, and all sorts of marine animals. We saw purple starfish, anemonies, and harbor seals. We also had a few bald eagle fly-bys! They are HUGE. It is crazy too - their wingspan is so large, they are extra stable when gliding. They are just like big cargo airplanes cruizing through the air.
The tour crew whipped up a yummy lunch for us on a beach a few miles up the coast. We got a chance to get a breather and try to warm up a bit. The ocean water and the light breeze made for a cold experience. I think in the end we were over the break and just wanted to get back to working up a sweat kayaking. It was a sweet beach anyway - there were lots of fun driftwood logs.
On the way back, we got to catch a sweet rip current. We paddled out pretty far into the ocean, through some choppy water and ended up in a smooth current. We just sat in the kayaks as the current drifted us down the coast. This was apparently pretty unusual - we were happy for a more relaxing kayaking experience. We were both pretty tired at this point.
I mapped the trip using the SPOT tracker, it looked like we kayaked about 8 miles.
The ferry ride back to the van was a nice break. We warmed up in the sun, and I caught a few zzz's.
We ended up crashing at the camp the guide recommended in Anacortes. It was a paid campsite - but it was well worth it. There were some hot showers on site that warmed us right up.
Check out the Orcas and Eagles tour if you're in the Seattle area:
No comments:
Post a Comment