San Juan Islands Sea Kayaking from Anacortes

The "best guide on the east side", or so he claims, spent enough time up on Cypress Island these last two weeks to qualify him for residency. Ryan came back over the mountains from Yakima to take a group of students from Central Washington University up to Pelican Beach, the same camping area that we all were at the previous weekend. His trip was a great success, the students had a fantastic sea kayaking experience and were also able to take in some of the nice trails that Cypress Island has to offer.
Since he was in the area, we solicited him to stay for the rest of the week to assist with our annual San Juan Islands sea kayaking trip with the Mount Bachelor Academy. Using the Island Express water-taxi we transported the kids, kayaks, and camping equipment to Pelican Beach where we set up our base camp. The weather was good for the whole week. We had a bit of wind on the first two days which helped us to teach the kids about the importance of group dynamics and he non-verbal signals that are so vital for a safe sea kayaking experience. The last day was picture perfect weather, sunny and warm, so we opted to make a longer crossing over to Sinclair Island. From the south shore of Sinclair we were able to take in the outstanding beauty of the eastern San Juans. It had been a while since I had been able to enjoy kayaking along that shoreline, the series of pocket beaches and meadows of wildflowers was a real treat to experience. We saw lots of Bald eagles and seals on this trip, not to mention the array of intertidal life that comes out during low tides. On the last morning, as we headed in on the water-taxi, we looked up Bellingham Channel and saw J-Pod (one of our Resident Orca whale families) coming south towards Anacortes.
This was our fourth kayaking trip with the Mount bachelor Academy and we really appreciate their support of our program. This is one of my favorite trips of the year.

The next ten days is promising summer-like conditions and our trips are filling up fast. It looks like we will be getting busy early this year!