Yes, I am behind on my personal photos. And it’s not like I’ve been making very many lately. Here are a few highlights from our annual visit to the Salish Sea.
Category Archives: Lopez Island
We spent last week camped at Odlin Park on Lopez Island in the San Juan archipelago. The weather was mostly lovely with just one windy day and we were able to be on the water a fair amount. Sky got to try dock diving and Luna poked around the wrack line for smelly stuff, occasionally going in the water. We set crab traps, lost two of them on the windy day, and Ken fished (unsuccessfully) for salmon. We shared good food with good friends at our beachfront picnic table. The day we left, wildfire smoke from Oregon and California filled the air and we were ok with the end of the camping trip.
Expensive transportation to the islands
Our beachfront campsite
So many kinds of boats
Freight and heavy equipment travels on barges
Crab trap floats
Mangy looking crow on the beach
Cute little Mew Gull
Resilience
Madronna trees
Pelagic Cormorants cling to cliff faces
On top of a cliff
I grew up visiting the San Juan Islands when they were less well-known and not so developed. My grandmother had a primitive cabin (no electricity or running water) there and I learned to love eating Dungeness crab, steamer clams and other seafood. I thought everyone did that. It wasn’t til I was older that I realized how lucky I was. Visiting Lopez is like a taste of that life as a youngster and a chance to eat fresh Dungeness crab again. We had three days of crabbing last week and did pretty well. I think everyone had enough crab to eat and a bunch was taken home too!
Ken and Carl off to set traps
They were well supervised when it came time to pull traps
That’s a keeper!
Carl’s signal for a good crab
This gull supervised cleaning crabs
A few scenes from Lopez Island
Harlequin Ducks
Black Oystercatcher
Do you know how hard this is?
As good as it gets
It’s breaking down.
Good girl Luna
Branch manager and assistant branch manager
Now that’s dignified!
Kind of dignified
We couldn’t figure out what they were doing.
Canada Geese and Harlequin Ducks
So many seals
The current kept the kelp in this arrow shaped pattern
Those patterns!
That face!
This is the third year in a row we have camped at Lopez Island during the first week of September. We like it and we will keep doing it. This year three friends and Ken’s brother and his wife joined us along with a couple of strawberry blonde dogs. We had dinner parties every night, caught Dungeness crabs on three days, Ken and Carl and our Lopez friend David, fished and caught some salmon, played with dogs and we relaxed. It was a good time.
The view from bed in the camper.
Our campsite
So many smells
I could watch the waves all day long
Rozie
Don seemed pretty brave to take Molly out in his canoe
They came back safely and dry
Molly was trying to incite Sky
Sky stood her ground.
Sometimes she can’t stop moving.
Take that, Molly!
My stick
We had an interesting assortment of boats and this doesn’t count Ken’s fishing boat or Vinnie, the borrowed tiny dinghy.
Kelp under the water
Who doesn’t love an island sunset?
My Everyday Photos 