Baby Island

About three miles to the south of our Breezy Point place is Baby Island.  The boulders are actually harbor seals--we think they're all seals but didn't get close enough to determine if they're sharing the real estate with sea lions.  The population might be one of the reasons we see transient orcas passing by once in a while. 

Breezy Point

A few pics from trips up to our place on Camano Island...

A breezy day at Breezy Point. 

 One of Aaron's favorite places to take a nap:

 In the spring we see schools of baitfish (maybe herring or candlefish) moving through.  You usually can tell by all the birds and seals in the immediate vicinity.  We also finally saw a grey whale going by this spring with a big spout.  There had been lots of reports from the neighbors but we always seemed to miss them.

Another breezy day at Breezy Point.

We planted baby clams in our tide flats a year or two ago.  We'll see if it works.

 Lots of fresh crab.

Every once in a while we see a pod of transient orcas pass by our back yard.  They are different than resident orcas in that they feed on marine mammals rather than salmon.  They move quickly and quietly.  Woe to the poor seal who ends up in their path.

The summer of 2016 there were a lot of forest fires in the area which made for some interesting sunsets.

Aaron and Noah go climbing

Aaron and Noah have been doing some indoor climbing (seems to be a big thing in the Northwest).  There was an indoor climbing gym near Ashland so we made a couple of trips while we were there.

Noah and Dad Run 13.1 miles!

Steve and Noah ran in the Seattle Half Marathon this fall.   This was Noah's first time ever to run that far after starting training only about two months before the race.  Noah finished the whole thing with no stops with a time of about 2:15.  The course was extremely hilly; a flat course probably would have been a fair amount faster.

Aaron Races in the Czech Republic!

Aaron and Seattle K2 partner Jake raced in the K2 and made the semifinals.  Based on semifinal times  if they'd been in the other semifinal heat they would have made the final and been 6th overall.  They showed that they were in the mix racing the fastest paddlers in the world.

Lots of details of paddling race results are available at our club website.

Below is a picture of the west coast contingent of the US Olympic Hopes team getting ready to depart from the SeaTac airport.

Noah and Dad Head to Westport

Noah didn't have as exciting a summer as Aaron so we decided to head over to Westport to do some fishing in the big ocean for a late birthday present.   We went out on a smaller charter boat (High Life) that was highly recommended by one of our neighbors who is a big fisherman.  There were only six people including us fishing off the boat.  We both hit our limit on rockfish (sea bass) pretty quickly.  Unfortunately, it was a slow salmon day, and the boat only ended up with six salmon.  Fortuunately, Noah caught three of them!  And, they were the three biggest fish of the day.

We'd entered the daily fishing derby and when we got back to the dock we found out Noah's fish was in the lead!  The winner typically wins a few hundred dollars so we had high hopes.  Sadly, somebody from one of the other boats brought in a 14 pounder ten minutes before the cutoff and our hopes were dashed.  Overall though it was a great day of fishing.  We brought back a lot of poundage of fish!