Puget Sound Challenge – Day 7
Being that it was a Sunday morning, and being that I’d been up and moving my camp to higher ground at 1:30 in the morning, and also that I knew it was going to be a short day anyway… with all these considerations tilting me in one direction, I slept in. Where the other days found me on the water by 7:00 am, this morning I didn’t get out there until 9:00. And that was just to make the short paddle into town for breakfast and a cup of joe. I finally got underway at 10:00.
Crossing the bay was an easy venture, shielded as I was from the wind, which was building out on the 
open water. Once I did get out of the cove, it was hard to hide. I stayed along shore as much as possible. At least the tide and current were not factors… just the relentless wind coming out of the south, right on the nose.
open water. Once I did get out of the cove, it was hard to hide. I stayed along shore as much as possible. At least the tide and current were not factors… just the relentless wind coming out of the south, right on the nose.My initial hope, before I started this segment of the trip, was to make it all the way to Southworth, at the north end of Colvos Passage. The back-up plan was to try to at least get as far as Fay Bainbridge State Park, on the northeast side of Bainbridge Island. On this particular morning, however, there was no way that I was going to make the crossing into steep wind waves and a burly gale.
(I say “no way,” as if it were some absolute. It wasn’t. I learned a lot on this 5-day excursion and one of the biggest lessons was that, if I keep going, I’ll probably get there. Eventually. I think that if this were day 5 of a 6-day trip, I would have bitten the bullet and made my way over. But it wasn’t. So I didn’t.)
I stayed close to shore all the way around the point, until I got abeam of Indianola, where I started across toward Suquamish as the wind began to abate. 
It’s an odd time, that last hour of a long trip. It’s a moment that, although the whole trip has been building toward it, I am never really ready to have it happen. When I got to the take-out, there was a lone kayaker there who was just about to get on the water, to do the segment I had just completed that day. I’d met Tom before, but that was the first time I’d run into him out there. After talking for ten minutes or so, he paddled off and I climbed the hill for a piece of pizza and a beer, while I waited for Mary and Micah to arrive. The end.
It’s an odd time, that last hour of a long trip. It’s a moment that, although the whole trip has been building toward it, I am never really ready to have it happen. When I got to the take-out, there was a lone kayaker there who was just about to get on the water, to do the segment I had just completed that day. I’d met Tom before, but that was the first time I’d run into him out there. After talking for ten minutes or so, he paddled off and I climbed the hill for a piece of pizza and a beer, while I waited for Mary and Micah to arrive. The end.For now.
About Ken Campbell
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