It's a balance.

Samuel Island, San Juans, WA, USA



It's a balance - I took this saying from you John, it needed a better home. Heh!





Days like today must be the balance, for the last day on the water. I'm sitting here high on a rocky bluff, 69 meters above and less than 10 meters inland from the sea. It's a beautiful little island, a treasure. Eagles slide back and forth on the currents of the air, riding the same south-westerly that forced me into this little cove. Not a pretty cove as such, the kind that has a small beach disappearing at high tide, and collects all the big logs and stumps of great trees that have fallen to the saws over the years. The bank behind it is steep, and I chock up a little platform of driftwood to sleep on up above the water's reach. Note to self - don't even THINK of trying to launch from here at high tide stupid.



As the sun goes down, to my right, Port Angeles lights up the dusk straight ahead, and Burrow's Island Lighthouse flashes to my left. It feels like I have a view of the world from up here - or maybe a world? The ground is covered in thick mats of thick and pristine mats of moss. Patches of ghostly white lichen grows in miniature forests of inches instead of feet. Tiny wildflowers blooming - lemon yellow umbellifers hug the ground - simple white flowers held above fuzzy white leaves - little pink and purple flowers scattered about me in drifts. Can't see then now as the light has faded into the dusk.



Highlights of today? Every precious moment.

The reflected flash of a leaping salmon's scales, launching and paddling with choices, ferries about but never a concern... like I said, every precious moment. 





Upright Bluff is beautiful, as I paddled along it's cliffs of concretions I looked for plants that I knew. A sea-spray stunted flowering current flowering it's red flowers in defiance. Sedum spathufolium pouring out of shaded cracks and fissures, licorice fern covering what it could, in a way that only licorice fern can. The stone concretions that these islands are made up of look like something poured out of the back of one big-ass concrete truck, all glommed together of stone and material. Sloppy worksmanship on a small scale but impresive on this massive one. There's a ferry dock right around the corner for those inclined to ferry/paddle the San Juans.



Stopped to chat with a diver and his captain along the way and to mooch a re-fill on my water bottle. Wanted something to wash down a Clif bar - the toffee ones are goooooood. Must be the caffeine ;O)

I lost my watch as I launched at Friday Harbour so I'm now using fingers from the horizon - and for the next while I guess. I pulled off the water at 0-six fingers. I tried to make the crossing to deception Pass via Bird Rocks, and Burrows Island... tried... just as I was within smelling distance the wind swung to the SW, very strong. I tried my battle my way upwind the rest of the way to the rocks but things just kept getting bigger and tougher. I even tried a half-assed ferry out into the strait to see if it was even possible but as soon as I presented some profile to the wind I was blown off course and lost any momentum. That's what the crab pots told me anyways. I layed on my side, and spun in the wind, caught the first wave back to this cove. At one point i looked down as a wave passed me and my entire lower body was underwater. Peresephone 'rose' to the challenge though.



I made a choice I'm happy with. As a result, I got a day of beach-combing for blue glass, a great sunset hike, and now Orion showing me the way. Time for bed. G'nite.