Salt Water

It rained last night for the first time in a couple months. Today it is calm with a very light breeze and I put in on the sound north of the ship canal. I paddle south to West Point along the outside of the breakwater. Boat traffic is light and what there is seems to be timing itself for the locks or the draw bridges - the draw bridges don't open during rush hour traffic. There are caspian terns and some small murrelets or auklets (I can't see them well enough to ID) and a few great blue herons, which are sunning on top of the rocks. The tide is moderately low and when I paddle through the kelp bed south of the canal, the bulbs "bonk" off the bottom of the canoe. At West Point, an osprey circles low hunting for fish and none of the people out on the point notice. I return closer to shore, more caspian terns, gulls sitting on the beach in a separate flock. I turn into the ship canal and paddle up to the locks. Several kingfishers are goofing off up here. I imagine that the lock and dam create good feeding for the kingfishers, there are always some present. I take the photo on the way back out to the sound and then return inside the breakwater. There are jellyfish in the water and they look like a huge egg that is being poached, milky white with a yellow core and some white strands floating beneath.