Mini-moon #3

When B and I got married last September, we had a hard time deciding what to do for our honeymoon. There were so many trips we wanted to take that we had a hard time narrowing it down to just one. So, we decided to take a bunch of honeymoons-- "mini-moons", if you will. Our first one was three days in Cannon Beach on the Oregon coast at the end of September. Then, we were in Hawaii in January for a wedding so that was #2. Our most recent mini-moon was just this past week: kayaking for four days around the San Juan islands in Puget Sound.

Our good friends, Geoff and Julia, organized the whole trip through a guide company called Discovery Sea Kayaks out of Friday Harbor on San Juan Island. They offer a trip package called "guided rentals" which is perfect for people like us-- outdoorsy types who know how to camp, cook and survive in the outdoors, but don't know squat about tides, currents or the islands. They provided the boats, safety gear and a guide-- we provided the food, camping gear, and man power.

Here is little photographic taste of our adventure:

Bryan and me on the ferry to San Juan Island.

Boats in Friday Harbor the night we arrived. Being Portlanders, we were used to the fog. :)

Sunset shot near Jones Island of our guide Michelle.

Julia and me both in the driver's seat for a sunset cruise.

Sunset looking west toward Vancouver Island.

Lunch on Turn Island. Bryan, Geoff, Julia and Michelle, probably pointing out our afternoon route.

A shot of all of us at the end of the trip.

Bryan put some more photos from the trip up on our flickr page: www.flickr.com/photos/bdhoybook

Photos can't capture everything though. We were never fast enough on the shutter to catch the harbor seals that would poke their heads up out of the water just yards from the kayaks. They'd be gone just as fast as they showed up. And we couldn't capture the sound the bald eagles make when they talk to each other. Or how glassy the water is at 7am. One thing I wish we could get on film was the bioluminescense. We stayed out until after dark on our sunset cruise on Tuesday night so we could see it. Tiny little organisms in the water light up when they have been disturbed. It was as if we had sparklers attached to our paddles. So very cool.

We had such a great time and will definitely be back. You how I said a couple of weeks ago that I needed a boat? Make that a kayak.