One of the ways Outdoor Odysseys tries to distinguish themselves is by the food they serve on their trips. Here’s one of the several uses to which that Dutch oven was put: a frittatta for breakfast Wednesday morning. It was worth the weight.
After breakfast we went for a hike on the island while Chris prepped lunch; the plan was to go for a paddle in the afternoon over to the west side of Stuart Island. Part of Stuart Island is a state park, but there are also some residents — there are a couple of working farms, as far as I could tell. David and I walked on a trail and along the gravel county road to the little settlement on Prevost Harbor around the corner from our campsite was, past the one-room schoolhouse, which was in session again after being closed for a year due to lack of enrollment. Near the schoolhouse there was an interesting honor-based open-air souvenir kiosk, DBA “Boundary Pass Traders.” The business belongs to a family that lives on the island. They stock a treasure chest with their merchandise — T-shirts, note cards, hats, etc. — and you take what you want to buy and send them a check in the mail. Apparently, it works, as they’ve been in business for a number of years. David bought a T-shirt and I chose a pack of note cards.
Here’s the little dock house at Prevost Harbor, with tourist.
And the Post Office:
It’s all very bucolic.
After we got back to camp and had lunch, we got in the kayaks and paddled around the north shore of Stuart Island to Turn Point on the west side, which faces Boundary Pass, the border between the U.S. and Canada.
It’s a big shipping channel, but the waters are so protected and calm that we were able to get right up next to the cliffs and look down into the water at amethyst-colored starfish. Later we paddled away from the island into a swirling eddy, formed a raft with the three kayaks all together, and spun round and round until the eddy spat us out.
The next day, Thursday the 4th, we packed up our campsite and returned to San Juan Island. It was a shorter return trip because we were landing at Roche Harbor, which is closer to Stuart Island than Small Pox Bay, where we started our trip. We got to see some river otters and a lot of harbor seals on this part of the trip, as we paddled between Spieden Island and the very small, uninhabited Sentinel Island, both of which have rocks along the cliffs that are popular haul-out sites for marine mammals.
A couple of stinky but happy kayakers at Roche Harbor (no showers or hot water at the state campground on Stuart Island).
I think the San Juans have spoiled me for all other sea kayaking. It helped that we had perfect conditions — cool, nearly windless, no rain. Then there’s the mystery of all these islands — large and small, inhabited and deserted, in this inland sea that is so protected yet still so wild-seeming. It’s absorbing to observe the currents and landforms and try to figure out how to work with them. And the intriguing homes and other buildings on shore also inspire the imagination. I loved being able to go to places, like the cliffs at Turn Point, that are inaccessible by any other means. I’m sure we will be back out there many times.
Next: Back to the landlubber’s life.
(All photos by David.)
After breakfast we went for a hike on the island while Chris prepped lunch; the plan was to go for a paddle in the afternoon over to the west side of Stuart Island. Part of Stuart Island is a state park, but there are also some residents — there are a couple of working farms, as far as I could tell. David and I walked on a trail and along the gravel county road to the little settlement on Prevost Harbor around the corner from our campsite was, past the one-room schoolhouse, which was in session again after being closed for a year due to lack of enrollment. Near the schoolhouse there was an interesting honor-based open-air souvenir kiosk, DBA “Boundary Pass Traders.” The business belongs to a family that lives on the island. They stock a treasure chest with their merchandise — T-shirts, note cards, hats, etc. — and you take what you want to buy and send them a check in the mail. Apparently, it works, as they’ve been in business for a number of years. David bought a T-shirt and I chose a pack of note cards.
Here’s the little dock house at Prevost Harbor, with tourist.
And the Post Office:
It’s all very bucolic.
After we got back to camp and had lunch, we got in the kayaks and paddled around the north shore of Stuart Island to Turn Point on the west side, which faces Boundary Pass, the border between the U.S. and Canada.
It’s a big shipping channel, but the waters are so protected and calm that we were able to get right up next to the cliffs and look down into the water at amethyst-colored starfish. Later we paddled away from the island into a swirling eddy, formed a raft with the three kayaks all together, and spun round and round until the eddy spat us out.
The next day, Thursday the 4th, we packed up our campsite and returned to San Juan Island. It was a shorter return trip because we were landing at Roche Harbor, which is closer to Stuart Island than Small Pox Bay, where we started our trip. We got to see some river otters and a lot of harbor seals on this part of the trip, as we paddled between Spieden Island and the very small, uninhabited Sentinel Island, both of which have rocks along the cliffs that are popular haul-out sites for marine mammals.
A couple of stinky but happy kayakers at Roche Harbor (no showers or hot water at the state campground on Stuart Island).
I think the San Juans have spoiled me for all other sea kayaking. It helped that we had perfect conditions — cool, nearly windless, no rain. Then there’s the mystery of all these islands — large and small, inhabited and deserted, in this inland sea that is so protected yet still so wild-seeming. It’s absorbing to observe the currents and landforms and try to figure out how to work with them. And the intriguing homes and other buildings on shore also inspire the imagination. I loved being able to go to places, like the cliffs at Turn Point, that are inaccessible by any other means. I’m sure we will be back out there many times.
Next: Back to the landlubber’s life.
(All photos by David.)
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