Alder Creek Kayak & Canoe Blog

The July San Juan Multi Day Kayak trip was a ton of fun and we couldn’t ask for better weather. Each day started out a little cool, but the evenings were simply magical. Every night was calm with perfect sunsets and seals were fishing only a mere 100 feet away. The best part of the whole trip for me, was being able to cook our meals to a sun setting behind glacier carved islands.

Our group met at West Beach Resort on Orcas Island, Washington. West Beach Resort has some great people running the facilities. You are able to rent out small cabins or a place for a tent / RV. The resort sits on a small cove on the North Western side of Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands. They even have kayaks for rent and tours if you forgot yours at home. The nice thing about this spot is that they have overnight parking that is reasonable and the paddle to our camp site is only 6 miles away.

Our group met at 10 am on Thursday, packed up our gear and launched by noon. The current was running at nearly 3 knots and we could see 200 foot wide eddy lines. We had some paddlers that had only been in a kayak a few times and no one had any problems. The six miles took us a little over an hour with the faster current.

The next few days were simply wonderful. We paddled the Wasp Islands the following day, ate lunch on a small island, and then paddled into Deer Harbor for some late afternoon ice cream. We hung out in the Spring passage for a bit, playing in the current, before heading to the docks in Deer Harbor. The cool thing about this harbor is that we were able to watch a sea plane land. The scary thing about this harbor is that there is a SEA PLANE! Something to keep an eye on for sure!

On Saturday we headed to Friday Harbor and crossed from Yellow Island, in the Wasp Islands, to San Juan Island. The water looked pretty calm, but had some exciting 2 to 3 foot waves. We all had a good laugh heading across and made our way into Friday Harbor. We tied up our boats to the dock in the harbor and watched the ferry come in. We again headed up for some ice cream! The paddle back was nice since the current shifted in our favor back to camp. The ferry from San Juan to Orcas passed in front of us by a short distance and we could see folks on the ferry waving at us.

On Sunday we all woke up around 5:30am, had breakfast, and packed the boats for an 8 am launch. The wind had really picked up and made paddling a bit more difficult, but we were able to get back to West Beach Resort within a couple of hours. All in all it was a fantastic trip and the sunsets will certainly be difficult to forget. I can’t wait to head back and float again on some salt water.

-Shawn