Whidbey Island Adventure

Decided to go on an adventure outside last weekend. Packed up the kayaks and camping gear and headed to Deception Pass State Park.

We put in at Bowman Bay. This is where my company picnic was last summer, so I've paddled in the bay before. We decided to let the ebb tide take us out of the bay and into the Puget Sound, just north of Deception Pass. There was lots of wildlife about. Like this seal.

And these sea birds.  We even saw two guys landing a decent-sized lingcod on the rocks at the entrance to the Bay. After lunch we hiked around Deception Pass State Park and saw a bunch of bald eagles and lots of wildflowers in bloom.

Spent the night camped at South Whidbey Campground. It was a nice campsite, but surrounded by stinging nettles. Needless to say, I found them immediately and often. We watched the sunset from the beach at the campground and it was beautiful. We were disappointed it wasn't quite as clear on Saturday as it had been on Friday, but it certainly made the sunset prettier.

Not only was the adventure fun, it was a good chance to air out my tent and sleeping bag before Memorial Day weekend. I keep learning different lessons about canned food while camping.  Last summer I learned that I need to put a can opener in my camp box (result: hungry campers) and that one should never try to pull back the top of a can with bare hands (result: bloody fingers). This time, I learned that even when you buy cans with pull tabs, you should still have a way to get the hot cans out of the fire (result: burned hands, burned food, or hungry campers). We decided we should just leave the cans in the box for a later trip and ate another hot dog.