2011: Post 20 – Chicks on the beach, seals on the rocks

Clyde has wanted to paddle around Great Colinet Island in St. Mary’s Bay for a while now - I’ve heard him mention it several times.  The weather forecast looked good for today.  Tony e-mailed a bunch of us, but only Hazen, Clyde, and myself accepted.  What a day it was... I can see why they put ‘Great’ in front of the islands name…

Once Tony pulled up his skirt, and the rest of us finished packing our kayaks we headed straight across to the island...

There was no wind as we crossed the 1.5 kilometers to the island...

We agreed we would do a true circumnavigation and come back to the same spot before crossing back to Admirals Cove.  We all touched our bows off a beach after the crossing and then turned toward Mosquito Cove.  There wasn't much swell and wave action but there were lots of places to do some rock-hopping...

At one spot Hazen ended up sitting a little dry for a while...

There were lots of little caves and overhangs along the way...

When we got to Mosquito Cove we got out and walked around for a while.  There were a few cabins there but I thought the log cabin bird house was very interesting, although the tenants do need to do a little repair on the roof....

We did find some action here and there as we paddled along.  Hazen and Clyde are behind this wave...

By 1 pm we were at Wild Cove and got out to have our lunch.  With bellies filled we walked down the beach to check out potential future camp-sites.  There were some nests here and there, some with just one egg, some with several eggs, and some with none...

And there were even a few chicks on the beach (we did not bother them, only snapped a quick picture)....

The highlight of the day for me were the seals on the rocks.  We seen the head of one or two bobbing in the water along the way.  But at one point I seen a few on the rock so I took a quick picture.  As I sat looking at them I realized there were about a dozen sitting there.....

I decided to try to move a little closer for a better shot.  As I slowly paddled closer some of them took to the water to keep an eye on me...

I zoomed in my camera as far as it would go for a closer shot...

I just let the water push me along and snapped off a last shot...

In another little cove farther along I seen 4 or 5 more seals sitting on a rock but I did not have my camera turned on and didn't get any pictures of them.  I seen about 20 seals on our paddle today.  Sometimes you see one or two now and then, once before I seen four heads bobbing on the water looking at me.  But today was the first time I've seen so many on a paddle. 

From put-in to take-out at Admirals Beach our trip was just under 6.5 hours long, and we covered 25.92 kilometers (per my GPS).  Add in the drive (about 1.25 hrs each way) and time spent loading up the car in the morning, meeting the other guys, and gearing up and down at the launch-site, and this trip becomes a full day commitment.  But what a day it was!