HUMPback

Kayaking home this morning…  I saw a WHALE! The blow and hump of a humpback whale!

We borrowed a few kayaks from work yesterday and I went camping with Rhet a few people from work. We paddled about 7 miles around the bottom of Gravina Island and camped at the Blank Islands. There were no cruise ships in port today so we had planned earlier in the week to go camping. I was a little apprehensive about going because it was raining, and suppose to rain the whole evening. I don’t mind paddling in the rain, but I was thinking paddling 7 miles to sit on a wet beach, and using wet wood to try to start a fire while everything we brought got soaked… may not be what I was in the mood for, but we decided to go anyway.

I was happy to see the beach we were headed for by the end of our paddle, it was still raining, but mostly i was excited to be done with the paddle. We carry our boats up the beach a pretty good distance since we arrived at low tide and needed to pull the kayaks far enough up the beach so that they would still be there after the arrival and departure of high tide scheduled for the middle of the night.

Surprise, surprise, behind the trees lining the beach we were greeted by 2 fire pits surrounded by drift wood benches and protected by the rain from professionally constructed tarps hung in the trees. As much as we were all up for “roughing” it, I think everyone had a sigh of relief when we realized we would not be sitting in the rain all night. I for one, was not quite interested in learning how my down sleeping bag would fare through our tent potentially flooding.

We had a nice evening, and with the sun setting sometime around 11pm? It’s very easy to let the time slip away from you. It’s hard to tell really since it is usually too overcast for a true sunset, and since it is overcast it seems to stay lighter later because of the light on the clouds. The sun is rising sometime before 5am now, I forgot to bring a clock to bed with me, so I spent a few hours in the tent this morning pondering what time it was, always unable to go back to sleep if I don’t know what time it is (worried I’ll sleep to late I guess).

banana slug maowin down

 

Spent a little time at camp this morning, enough time to find the most awesome banana slugs I have ever seen.

 

They were exactly what I thought banana slugs would be like when I moved to the redwoods, yet all of the slugs I found in the redwoods were smaller and had more polka dots. Now these slugs, this is what I had always imagined they would look like. Large, yellow, and completely banana-esque.  

this is what i would call a BIG SLUG

Low tide again, and time to carry our vessels back down to sea. Paddling at low tide here is pretty awesome. Most of the coastline is rocky and perfect for observing sea stars, sea urchins, and crazy things like gumboot chiton and red sea cucumbers.

Just a few feet from shore and I notice an inch worm making its way across the back of Rhets collars. A true inch worm inching along, only the second one I’ve ever seen. After pointing it out to him, he also finds another baby one walking on him. Must have been an inch worm party in the tree his jacket was hanging in.

 

It feels like it was almost instantly after we started paddling that we saw the humpback. Not very close, but close enough to see the blow and the perfect shape of his hump come out of the water. I was hoping we would be able to get closer/ a better look, but we were unable too. Either way it is amazing and quite magnificent/majestic to consider these huge animals traveling in the water all the time, and to be able to few one while sitting on the horizon really felt like an other worldly experience.

 

As we watched the whale blows get further and further away, we were also able to spot a sea-lion, and some Dalls porpoise, also far off. Stopped for a minute to appreciate where I was and to remove my jacket since it was miraculously wasn’t raining, and I was actually too hot.

 

Rhet paddling Creek Street

We took advantage of there being no cruise ships in town and paddled up the creek (creek street). Creek street is south of the kayak shop, and there are typically 4 cruise ships between and shop and the creek, so we are unable to paddle there because of the regulations about keeping away from the cruise ships. From there we paddled through the pilings under the dock that runs along the water for part of the way before making it back to the kayak shop.

 

Two of our friends took care of Dill for the night. First time we have left her with anyone. She would have been fine on her own, but our friends are currently in-between housing, and we thought it might be nice for them to have a place to stay, and good for Dill to still be fed on her regular schedule and get to play out of her cage some.

I guess we were wrong. Our friends are kind-hearted people, but apparently Dill spent the whole evening hiding under the couch, except to come and pee on my bed. I guess she was scared of the new people, and mad at us for leaving her with them. Aware of Dills mind-set before we got home, Rhet brought her a carrot. Sitting with her back facing him, she turned to show she recognized his carrot gesture, and made sure to show us that she was not going to accept it and she was still upset.

She has since finished the carrot and accepted our apology.

 

As much as I wish she wouldn’t have felt like peeing on my bed, it definitely sent me the message she wanted it to and I can’t be mad at her for being scared.

I am happy all I had to do was to come home to make her happy again.

 

my precious little bad bunny

 

 

 

2011

06/18

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