Earth Day Weekend 2011 with Friends of Trees

Members of our scout pack woke up early for a Saturday to help Friends of Trees restore the habitat around the pond of a local park.  The Friends of Trees mission ...

... is to bring people in the Portland-Vancouver metro area together to plant and care for city trees and green spaces.

We had nearly 20 Cub Scouts ranging from Tigers to Webelos help with all aspects of the tree planting.  Even Aaron got to help out.

Patrick planting a tree.

Sunny and 68 - 70 degrees made this the warmest day so far this year and a great day to plant trees.  The areas we were planting had been underwater from winter/spring flooding not that long ago.  By the end of the planting session mud was becoming a fashion accessory. 

Aaron collecting the empty pots.

Hiking up Multnomah Falls and on to Larch Mtn (almost)

Patrick and I decided to take advantage of the first good weather we have had in weeks last weekend.  We have had heavy rain in the valley and snow in the mountains for weeks now.  Finally a break in the weather gave us a mostly sunny weekend with temps in the lower 50's.  This is perfect for going on a hike.  When I asked Patrick if he would like to go on a hike, he immediately said "Yes, can we go back to Multnomah Falls?"  With that we had a destination selected.  We had gone there last year on a hike with our cub scout group, but this time we would expand on that outing.  Patrick's job at that point was to make a list of everything he should take with him on a hike.  We reviewed & revised the list and packed our packs for our outing the next day.





View Larger Map


Arriving at the base of the falls we could see it flowing fuller than I have ever seen it before.  The soil was saturated from all the rain and the warmer weather was melting the snow pack to provide a rush of fresh cold water.

We started up the trail at 10am.  Still early enough that there were not a lot of people at the falls yet. The paved trail is generally easy to go up as it climbs ~700' up the side of the Columbia Gorge for ~1.2 miles.  We made it to the top of the water fall in about an hour.  This was just the start of our hike.  After a quick lunch break we stepped off the paved trail and onto the dirt and rock trail which follows the Multnomah Creek back into the Mt. Hood National Forest.  Our intended goal was the top of Larch Mountain (or as far as we could go and still have enough gas to get back).  Patrick wanted to hike until we hit snow.

A full Multnomah Creek rushing along.

As we hiked along Multnomah Creek, I was impressed with the flow.  This creek was doing a good job of trying to become a small river.  As we hiked along we could see why there was so much water flowing into the creek.  There was water just flowing out of the ground everywhere.  There were several small creeks running right through the trail.

First water crossing

Another water crossing

We were having a great time hiking along the trail.  I knew that we were not going fast enough to make it to the top of Larch Mountain, but I thought that we might make it to the snow line, until we encountered a major creek cutting through the trail.

Creek cutting off the other side of the trail.

We spent several minutes trying to figure out a way across.  The water was about 18" deep in places and the exposed rocks were all at odd angles.  Patrick was ready to charge the water and cross even if he ended up soaked in the process.  We were close to the time we needed to turn around to make it back home and I was not excited about trying to hike the rest of the way back with water in my boots if I slipped on a rock.  As if to prove my point two other hikers arrived at the creek crossing and went for the other side.  Both of them ended up slipping on the rocks and into the water.  With that I declared that this was our turning around point much to Patrick's disappointment.

On the way back we continued our almost constant conversation on anything and everything.  By the time we  made it back to the base of Multnomah Falls we had covered ~6 miles and had a total elevation gain of 1500'.  That's when Patrick announced that he was tired.  The Jeep was 200 yards away.  Perfect timing.

Minor crisis in the Yaquina Bay

Beth, the kids, and I were having a great time kayaking the Yaquina Bay in Newport.  The weather was perfect, traffic in the bay was minimal, and everyone was excited for another outing on the water.  We put into the bay just north of the Hatfield Marine Science Center and began paddling east into the bay.   The gentle flood tide helped to carry us along.

The tide level was quite low.  The kids were able to see clams in the few inches of water we were paddling in.  The mud flats, barely covered in sea water, stretched out several hundred yards to the shore line.  At least two dozen great blue herons were picking there way through the flats looking for lunch.  The paddling was great, but we didn't have a good place to let the kids out for a stretch.  After we had been out for about 1.5 hours Aaron started getting antsy. Given that we didn't have any place to let the kids out, Beth and I decided to turn around and head back.  The tide had not turned back yet, but we didn't have the time to wait.  Aaron was not going to last that long.  About 10 minutes into the return trip was all Aaron could handle.  Not known for his patience (being 2.5 yrs old at the time), Aaron starting crying up a storm.  He wanted off the boats and he wanted it NOW.  In that moment Beth and I stopped thinking like kayakers and start thinking like parents with an upset child.

It has always been our habbit of removing our kids from situation when they are having problems.  In the store, resturaunt, or other places one of us will remove the child who is having problems and deal with the issue to calm them down outside of the environment which may have caused or contributed to their problem.  In this case being on the boat for too long was the cause and the solution was to get off.  The only place to get off was back were we launched the boats.  Given that I am the stronger paddler in the faster boat, Beth asked me to take Aaron and head back as fast as I could.  She would follow behind.  Focusing on the state of distress Aaron was in I agreed and took off as fast as I could, keeping in mind that I could not exhaust my body halfway there.  Even with no sight-seeing and going full speed I was an easy 30 minutes away from landing the boat.  This is the point where we made a bad situation worse.

Most really good problems are caused by a series of mistakes/events that all intersect in space and time.  I have found that it generally takes about 3 mistakes/events to create a crisis. 

Mistake #1
We were too far away from a put-in to give the kids a break.  While Patrick can handle it (but may not be happy about it), Aaron is not old enough to handle long paddling outings.  We had planned on staying close enough to the shore to let the kids out, but with the low tide there was an easy hundred yards of mud flats between us and the bank.


Mistake #2
We split up. We piled both kids in my kayak so that I could get them back to the beach.  When Aaron started having problems we started thinking like parents and not like kayakers.  I was wearing a tow rope that I would have hooked up to Beth's boat had she been having a hard time paddling, but the problem we were fixing was not her ability to paddle, or keep up.  We were taking care of a child who had been on the boat long enough.

Mistake #3
Beth tried to keep up.  She pushed her ability beyond what she could sustain.  Disregarding all other elements, her sit-on-top kayak was just not going to go as fast as the rest of us were in the tandem.  Complicated by the tide going against us, Beth exhausted herself while still having a good distance left to go.  While I kept looking over my shoulder at her, I was too far away to see that she was having problems.  She was able to make it back to the shore unassisted but she would not have made it much further.

Lesson #1
Be more aware of time and distance for the kids needs.  There was nothing wrong with the location of our outing, but we should have been more aware of the time needed to get to shore.  We were enjoying the area so much that we lost track of how long we were on the water and how far we had to go.  We would have been better off identifying that there was no good location to let the kids out and paddling around closer to our launch point.

Lesson #2
Never split up.  I had a tow belt, but I didn't think to use it as Beth was not having a problem paddling.  I could have hooked up to her boat and towed her and Aaron while she stopped paddling to take care of Aaron.  In any event staying together would have helped us avoid bigger problems even though one of our kids was no longer having a good time.

Lesson #3
Pace yourself for the distance needed to travel.  As I was pulling away, Beth felt the need to push herself harder to keep up.  Focusing on my kayak instead of our final destination made her push her physical limits beyond what she could sustain.

In the end we got lucky and nothing else happened to make the complicated situation an honest disaster.  Had Beth's situation turned into a rescue, I would have been too far away to assist and with Aaron already having problems, getting back to her would have been challenging.

Until we had a need to get to shore quickly, the outing was great.  Yaquina Bay is a great place to paddle and is a great family outing.  Just be aware that depending on where you go in the bay there can be extensive mud flats during very low tides which makes it impossible to give the little ones escape time.  Although the clamming would have been great.

American Red Cross ASL Class

I signed up online for an American Red Cross Basic First Aid and Adult & Child CPR class. The class was listed as being ASL instruction.  I wasn't interested so much in the style of the class and the letters ASL didn't mean anything to me.  I was just looking for a class that covered adult and child CPR on a weekend and the first aid component was bonus.  Turns out that ASL is American Sign Language and that two of the four people who signed up for this class were hearing impaired.  The only ASL I know is the sign for flower and the "I Love You" sequence.  This was going to be awkward. The Red Cross training center had created this class special for a pair of hearing impaired women who were not able to make it to other sessions with an interpretor.  I was feeling bad about complicating the class until we found out that the hearing impaired women had called at 9 o'clock the night before to cancel for a family emergency.  We ended up justifying the instructor's time in coming out to the training center.  In the nearly private class setup (two students to one instructor) we had enough time to slip in adult and child AED.


Emergency Preparedness Kits at REI. Shop Emergency and Survival Kits and First Aid Kits.

Reel Paddling Film Festival 2011

Lined up outside the Bagdad for the film festival.

The Reel Paddling Film Festival made it's annual visit Portland this week thanks to Alder Creek Kayak and Willamette Riverkeeper.  As usual it was held at the McMenamins Bagdad Theater & Pub.   The Bagdad is a great place for events like this as you get your pizza and beer while enjoying a movie in a comfortable atmosphere.  Tim (my ride for this outing) and I were able to navigate traffic and cross town in 45 minutes to arrive right at 6pm for the doors to open.

Being a paddling film festival, you get a very focused audience. It was like having a super sized kayak club meeting.  Through the various outings and classes I've had, I probably knew more people in the theater that evening than I know at work.  This year there was a kayak which was raffled off at the end and a special twist on the last film of the evening.  We got to choose the last film of the evening.  Either the best sea kayaking or the best canoeing film of the 2011 film festival.  With a whole theater full of paddlers, most of whom are sea kayakers, I knew what our last film was going to be.

Beer, pizza, and movies.

This years selection of movies were all very good for their own reasons.   The festival opened up with Halo Effect by Steve Fisher.  I like watching white water films, but I find that too many of them are a series of waterfall drops which lasts for 60 minutes.  Through good cinematography and a compelling narrative, Halo Effect had much better staying power than your average white water kayaking film.




Our second film for the evening was Tanker Love.  This film follows a group of Hawaiian Life Guards visiting Galveston Texas in an effort to raise peoples awareness of the destruction that still exists from Hurricane Ike.  Oh, and while they are in Galveston they use standup paddle boards to surf tanker wakes that would run for 5 miles.




While I can not say that I liked our third movie the best, it is the one which I have thought the most about.  Solo is a documentary about the attempted trip from Australia to New Zealand by Andrew McAuley in 2007.  He was an IT professional, with a wife and young son, who quit his job to attempt a kayaking journey which most people considered impossible.  Aspects of this story hit very close to me and I imagine many others in the audience.  Previously, at the end of each film we all clapped to show our appreciation of the effort and quality of the production.  The somber mood of the film hit everyone so deeply that nearly all of us forgot to applaud.  After the credits had finished rolling and the film festival logo was showing on the screen, one person from the back of the theater began to clap.  By the third clap we all were jolted out of our personal reflections and gave the same appreciation applause we gave for the other films.  A man sitting off to my right said, "It's hard to clap for that one".  It's a very good film which is hard to like.








After Solo, the next two short films greatly lightened the mood.  Season: Fall and Small Hydro Power.








And finally we came to the last movie of the evening.  Was it going to be a canoe or sea kayaking movie.  I just knew that it was going to be the sea kayaking flick, until the details of the films were announced.  The best canoe film of 2011 was made by Frank Wolf.  His previous film, Borealis, was the most entertaining movie of the evening at the previous festival.  Suddenly I'm thinking that we might be in danger of watching the wrong movie.  I would guess that we were at least 80% sea kayakers with myself included.  Whichever film got the most applause was the one we were going to watch.  First up was the sea kayaking film.  The applause was good and I was wondering if the canoe film had a chance (along with probably everyone else who wanted it).   The voting for the canoe film came next and I clapped hard enough to make my hands numb.  So did everyone else who wanted it.  We soundly suppressed the sea kayak vote and got to watch Mammalian by Frank Wolf.   It was a very entertaining trip through the interior of Canada starting at Yellowknife and traveling to Rankin Inlet.  A number of mammals are encounted in the journey including the very rare snow leopard.






The final event of the evening was to raffle off the kayak.  Unlike most raffles for something this nice I was not up against thousands of other people.  It was my three tickets up against the tickets held by my fellow paddlers in the same great hall.  After a few moments of tension we all found out that the holder of ticket 662 had just won a kayak with paddle, life jacket, and car transport system.  A cheer from the upper deck let us all know where the winner was.  In that moment I discovered a reason to make sure that I attend this film festival again next year.  Maybe I'll be the person holding 662 next time.

Our Scouts Spend the Night on the USS Blueback Submarine

Captain Ramius: Re-verify our range to target... one ping only.
Capt. Vasili Borodin: Captain, I - I - I just...
Captain Ramius: Give me a ping, Vasili. One ping only, please.
Capt. Vasili Borodin: Aye, Captain.

This and other flashbacks from "The Hunt for Red October" were flashing through my head as we took a tour of the USS Blueback.  The sub is on permanent display at OMSI and is available for tours and camp-ins.  Our cub scout group shared the sub with a few other cub scout and boy scout groups for a great outing.

Bunk intended for a full sized adult was just right for Patrick.

Our fist stop was to board the submarine to choose our bunks.  After getting our sleeping bags and overnight gear stored, we went back into OMSI where we watched a movie in the planetarium about the creation of stars called "Journey to the Stars".  This movie captivated the scouts as we were taken on a cosmic trip through the origions of the universe and watched stars from birth to death.  The movie on the planetarium's domed screen surrounded us as we looked up at it.   We really got the feeling of flying through space as celistical objects whipped by us and passed just to the edge of our vision before disappearing.

Looking for surface contacts

From the movie we went on to a class room where the program directors lead a discussion with the scouts on what makes a submarine surface and submerge in the water.  Using a large fish tank standing about 4' off the floor the scouts learned about the principles of bouancy, displacement, mass, and surface area.  Then it was their turn to create a boat of their own.  Each team of two boys were given a block of modeling clay to make a boat of their own.  The goal was to create a boat which could hold as many marbles as possible before sinking in the tank.  At first the boys had lots of interesting boat shapes but quickly figured out that a disc shape was the best for the exercise.  The best team in our pack held about 38 marbles, while the best boy scout was in the 70's.  Apparently they occasionally get boats which manage to hold over 100 marbles.  Then a quick snack for the kids and it was off to the submarine.  The tour started off at the submarines screw (propeller) which is mounted upright next to the museum.

30 degrees down, right full rudder

Moving onto the dock the Blueback is attached to, we got a review of the external features of the sub and some background information of the sub's dates of service and roles it played.  Our scouts were bubbling with questions.  In order for us to move on with the tour, our guide had to limit the questions at any one spot in the hope that we would cover the rest of the questions while we continued the tour.  We moved into the boat where the scouts crowded around the officers table.  On the table was a map of the submarine.  Our guide described the areas of the ship we were about to visit and took a few more questions. Then it was off to the control room.  The control room was lit in red lights which allowed people looking through the periscope to keep their night vision.  The scouts got to look through the periscopes (2 of them), take a turn at the helm, and hear a dive alarm.






 From there we went on to see the torpedo room, galley, the head (so small that most people didn't even know that they passed it), and engine room.  Up to this point the scouts were limited on what they were allowed to touch when it came to the sub controls.  This is where that changed.  There was a whole panel of switches and dials which they could flip and turn.  After the tour we had mostly free reign of the ship.  The boys had a list of items, for a scavenger hunt, to locate on board the sub.  This allowed us to explore more of the ship in detail apart from the group.  The one rule was that they could not go anywhere without an adult.

Captain to engine room, we need more power.

Following all of this excitement was lights out.  This was a bit of a nightmare.  Imagine trying to get a group of boy scouts and cub scouts ready for bed in bunks which are too short for the kids to sit up in and aisles that are too narrow for two adults to pass each other even turned sideways.  At one point when one of our parents needed to get by, I just rolled myself into a bunk which allowed him to pass.  Lights out was at 11pm.  The kids still had a little energy, but in such limited quarters, they settled down quickly.

Six am came early the next day.  The scouts were a little slow to get going but we were off the boat by 6:45am.  We had the breakfast provided and access to OMSI for the day.  After that weekend several of our scouts just knew that living on a sub was the perfect life for them.  Lets see if they still feel that way when they are fully grown.

Epic Bike Ride Home

Yesterday's ride home was epic.  Looking outside to check the weather in the morning I saw that it was wet, but nothing too severe.  I packed some rain gear and my folding bike into the back of my wife's Jeep and we headed into work.  I will frequently catch a ride into work with her and then ride the bike home.  Keeps me fresh going into work and we can both leave on our own schedule.  I knew that I was going to be leaving work late last night but it ended up being much later than expected.  About 9pm I decide that it was time to head out as I had had enough fun in the office.  I suited up for the ride home and headed out.

Finally Arrived Home

Exiting the building I am greeted by a thunder clap and cold rain dumping from overhead.  For a moment I had this vision of a white bolt of lightning streaking out of the sky and blowing the wheels off my bike mid-commute.  This was a considerable step up from the morning and I considered wussing out and calling Beth to get me.  I could not really justify having her come to my rescue as the kids were in bed by now and I was setup for ridding in the rain.  My bike has fenders and was wearing water proof pants, jacket, and backpack.  I should be fine.  Besides ridding in these conditions helps to justify why I have all of this stuff.  A short while later I had my bike unfolded with two headlights, a wheel light, and a tail light screaming "HEY, DON'T RUN ME OVER!" and I began the ride home.

A few minutes into the ride and I was wondering if I should trade in my clear cycling glasses for a diving mask.  The water drops were so large and coming so fast that trying to wipe the water from the lenses made no difference.  At one point the water on my glasses caught the light of on coming cars and glared so much that I lost sight of the road.  In my head I heard, "Luke, you've turned off your targeting computer!  What's wrong?"  I was using the force to stay in the bike lane.  This is a route that I have biked hundreds of times and yet it was taking my full concentration to stay in the lane and try to identify any surprise crud that I might need to avoid.  My primary headlight usually lights up the road, but last night it was almost like I didn't have anything at all.  After 6 miles of cycling by feel, I turn down my street, only to find that it wasn't my street.  I had turned a block early but could not tell until I saw that the first house on the right did not belong to me. 

As I came up to the front door, Beth saw the lights of my bike shine through the window.  She opened the door before I was on the front step.  She was glad to see me home safe, but suggested that on future nights like this it might be better for me to wuss out.

Bike: Novara FlyBy
Headlight: Light & Motion Stella 120
Wheel Light: Monkeylectric
Shell: Mountain Hardwear Epic Jacket and Pants
Backpack: Mountain Hardwear

Spring 2011 has arrived

So the time change just occurred, spring officially does not arrive until next week, but I know that spring showed up last weekend here in Oregon.  Two weeks ago we had a layer of snow coating the valley.  Crocus flowers were punching through the snow layer indicating that spring was around the corner.

Fast forward one week and the snow is gone and I find a honey bee checking out an open crocus.  This is the first honey bee I have seen this year.  The next day I find that the one bee has told all his friends about the flowers and over a dozen bees are buzzing around.

Seeing the bees buzzing around let me know that spring had arrived.  Looks like it is time to switch from thinking about skiing/snowboarding to cycling and kayaking.

Ski/Snowboard for free at Mt. Hood Skibowl March 4th

Mt. Hood Skibowl is again doing a food drive for the Portland Police Bureau's Sunshine Division.  I have participated in this food drive for the last several years, and the Sunshine Division has delivered perfect ski days every time.  It might be chance, but I'd rather believe that there is some sort of karma balance in the universe thing going on.  If you are willing to drive up to Mt. Hood to donate food, the least that could happen is that you get a crisp blue sky day with a great snow base.

More information available from KATU.

Pinewood Derby 2011

Our cub scout pack's pinewood derby was held this weekend.  As we were setting up for the big event it occurred to me how different this was from when I was a cub scout.  It used to be that everyone would show up with their cars, weigh in on a balance scale, and run down a wooden track until the fastest cars were figured out and the winner declared.  Our derby looked more like the mission control center for a shuttle launch.  We had three laptops, a DVD player, LCD projector, two amplifiers, a digital scale measuring the cars to 1/10 of an ounce, and an inkjet printer on the head table.  One of our laptops was connected to the digital timer on our plastic track which identified the scaled speed, time, and 1st through 4th place cars for each race.  The software on the laptop would organize which cars would race in which lane and picked which cars would advance to the next heat.  With a couple of booster rockets would probably could have landed one of these cars on the moon.

Once everything was setup our system kept things moving right along with upbeat music helping to keep the excitement up.  The kids were great and would cheer on the cars in every race.

Each year I am impressed by the diversity of the cars the kids create and this year was no different.  One of the most popular cars with the kids looked like a chocolate covered pastry with sprinkles.



Patrick's design was lightning bolt themed which looked great streaking down the track.

Our first cross country ski outing

We went on our first family cross country ski trip a few weeks ago.  Everyone was excited to get out and give this a try for different reasons.  Aaron (3) had been wearing his cross country skis around the house several times for what I like to call basic training.  He had learned how to shuffle forward and how to turnaround without stepping on his skis.  Aaron had sat next to me on the couch watching ski racing and action skiing movies, but had never used them in the snow himself.  When we had packed everything up he knew that we were not going to be skiing on the carpet that day.  Patrick (8) has been enjoying alpine skiing for several years now, but always has trouble in the flats and slight uphill sections you can encounter in ski resorts.  The idea that these skis we were taking out would grip the snow and carry him forward on the flats and hills was a new dimension to what was to this point a downhill only sport.  Beth had been skiing once in her life (alpine) as a teenager and apparently it didn’t go well.  This was her chance to see if there was something more to skiing than pain and minor suffering.  And for me, this was my chance to introduce my family to yet another outdoor activity which I enjoy.

For our first outing I wanted to find a location which was mostly flat, had easy access to facilities, and didn’t take too long to get to.  The solution was the Summit Trail on Mt. Hood.   This trail runs through the Mt. Hood Skibowl resort on the south side of Government Camp.  If you access the trail from the Skibowl East parking lot you can choose to take the trail to either the east or the west.  The western section is a nice path through the woods with moderate hills and turns.  The eastern side is really just a wide snow covered forest road.  For our first time out as a family learning how to ski together, this is just what I wanted.

View Larger Map

Before heading out on the trail we spent some time just tromping around and learning how to operate our ski setups.  The kids both had Karhu Kboom skis with Aaron (35lbs) using the 70cm and Patrick (55lbs) using the 85cm skis.  These attached securely to their snow boots and worked very well for learning what this cross country ski thing was all about.  Patrick figured out how to get around quickly.  Aaron needed some more trial and error, but was insistent on doing it himself.  The one time I tried to hold his hand to help him balance, I got a scolding by him that a nun would have been proud of.  Beth found her balance on the skis and after we had been practicing for about 30 minutes, she asked if we were ready to go.  She was ready to hit the trail.

We started out with everyone on skis but it quickly became apparent that Aaron was going to need to hitch a ride if we were going to make any distance at all.  We loaded him up on the sled I was towing and headed out at a comfortable pace.  The noise of the ski resort and road was quickly muffled by the surrounding snow.  We saw a few other cross country skiers and snowshoers, but mostly we had the trail to our selves.  We had a lunch stop where the kids got to explore a little and then continued on a bit more before taking the trail back to Mt. Hood Skibowl.  We had only covered about 1.5 miles, but everyone enjoyed the outing.

A few weeks later we finally got a dusting of snow down in the valley.  Aaron looked out the window and announced, “Snow!”.  He then dashed off to the back room of the house only to return with his Kboom skis.

Family Kayaking the Nestucca Bay

Over the summer the family and I went on a week long vacation to the Oregon coast.  One of the major highlights was the time we spent kayaking in the Nestucca bay. 

Our setup

The average temperature of the water off the coast of Oregon is in the low to mid 50’s F.   Everyone was dressed for immersion.  Beth got to try out the NRS Venus wetsuit I had given her a couple months before for her birthday.  She was very impressed with how well it fit her and the difference it made from her previous experiences being out in water.  Patrick and I were dressed in our NRS Farmer John wet suits, while Aaron was sporting a second hand 1mm suit.  Although his was by far the thinnest wet suit,  Aaron seemed to enjoy the cold water as he rushed into it while we were setting up and taking breaks. 

For our boats Beth paddled an Ocean Kayaks Peekaboo while I had a Necky Looksha T.  The Peekaboo has a jump seat in the front with is perfect for Aaron (3yrs old) to hang out.  Patrick sat in the front of the tandem with me.  Due to our weight difference it looked like I was doing a wheelie in the kayak most of the time.  Loading more weight in the front with Patrick would have evened out the boat, but for these easy day trips in perfect conditions it was not a big deal.

The outing

The Nestucca Bay is a nice sheltered body of water just south of Pacific City and bordered on the west by Bob Straub State Park.  We put into the bay on the north side of Bob Straub where they have a parking lot.  In the south east corner of the parking lot is a foot path that leads down to the waters edge.  We carried our boats down to the water, loaded up, and set out south towards the mouth of the bay.  We started out just before the flood tide.  Patrick alternated between helping with paddling and dragging his paddle in the water.  Thank goodness for rudders.  Aaron kept a lookout on the bow of Beth’s kayak while dragging his hands in the water.  He loved watching the water peel away from the boat as it was propelled forward by Beth’s strokes.

View Larger Map

As we floated over the shallow mud flats we were greeted by thousands of little nickel sized holes in the water bottom.  There were clams every which direction we looked.  Both Beth and I lamented the fact that neither of us had a shell fish harvesting license with us.  Beth’s kayak gave her an excellent view in the shallow water as she has a window in the bottom of her kayak.  Patrick was impressed that every one of these holes was the home of a clam living in the bay.   As we traveled around the bay we also encountered harbor seals, bald eagles, various minnows in the shallows, and numerous water birds.

Near the mouth of the bay we all pulled up on a beach which is part of Bob Straub State Park for a chance to stretch the legs and have lunch.  We had been engaged in a bit of a water fight up to this point.  No longer bound by the boats all squriters came out blazing.  We were on a warm sunny beach and alone to explore as far as we wanted.  Our battle and lunch were finished in time to catch the peak of the flood tide for a ride back.

Beth had never experienced the joy of a well timed tide.  We paddled out from the shallow water into the deeper channel where the river of water was rushing back in from the ocean.  She was impressed by how fast we were traveling back into the bay with little to no effort on our part.  We were easily going as fast as or faster than when we were paddling out.  Our kayak fleet arrived back to our starting destination without incident.  The best part of the outing is that everyone wanted to know when we were going to do it again.