Underwater Photography

Night falls at our campsite on the island.

Our Kayak team of Six make it to Blake Island

Mark and I took our first official fun trip without our girls. We should have started this tradition about 20 years ago and seem to have a hard time when we have any fun and it doesn't include our daughters. But its good to be together and share times just as husband and wife. I say this with 24 years of regret behind me.

We decided to go on a Kayak trip across the Puget Sound from Seattle to Blake Island with another fun couple. You take off from Seattle go through the shipping lanes and over to an Island that is a state park and Indian Village. Its seven miles one way.

I started to get nervous when I realized that it takes three hours to Kayak seven miles and there would be no potty breaks. You are out in the middle of heavy shipping traffic with huge ships passing by and large large barges going each way. I started to wonder what kind of sick person would take a women in her 40s and throw her on water for three hours with no rest stop in sight then add on top of that Crones problems and what Jamie Curtis calls "occasional irregularity" on her Activia commercials, and you get the full scope of my dilemma. Did I mention all the water. Yaa so, I started to panic a bit that morning and decided I needed a back up plan just in case heaven forbid my bladder or even worse gives out in open water with a cruise ship looking down on us. Just the thought of this made my whole insides scream out "Are you insane women!"

So I did like any good boy scout would do, or soldier facing war. I grabbed a zip lock bag, the gallon size ones, no pint size or snack size ones , but the gallon freezer ones, and put it in my pocket for safe keeping. When you go into battle, you must be willing to do what it takes to survive. I felt prepared for the worse. As we were loading our Kayaks I kept checking just to make sure my survival gear was still there. It was my lifeline. I was even more excited when I found out that one of the things you do when you Kayak that far is wear what is called a "wet skirt". It wraps around you and secures to the outside of the Kayak keeping the water out. This little wonderful invention would give me the privacy I needed just in case things should go in the critical direction.

As we got out on open water, it was breathtaking. The Seattle Skyline, the harbor, all the boats. Wow. And here we were inches off the water gliding alone taking it all in. Then a sea lion decides to say hello and glides feet from our Kayak. We saw starfish, all colors, and lots of Jelly fish even huge ones as we glided along the Puget Sound.

Hours went by and I was gaining confidence that I would make it without having to break out the zip lock. The funnest part for me was when the tugboats pulling the big barges went by and caused nice sized wakes that made us roll and rock over the waves. If you are not turned the right way it can tip over the Kayaks, so that was a bit thrilling.

Once we reached the island we saw racoons down by the waters edge playing and washing themselves. It really was a beautiful trip. We stayed on the island that night and slept while a family of racoons tried to rade our camp at midnight. It was funny listening to them right outside the tent doors. Then the next day we kayaked seven miles back to West Seattle. Mark and I couldn't feel our bottoms for a few hours after we finally arrived back on land.

We took a couple of cheap cameras and Mark and I both managed to dump them into the water as we were trying to get out of the Kayaks. So we only have a couple of pictures that turned out to keep as memories.

I'm so glad we took the time to share the fun memory together. We are already planning our next adventure. This time we are thinking sailboat around the San Jaun Islands. Of course the sailboat must come with a private bathroom, and I might take a zip lock just in case. One can never be to prepared.