I made a wrong turn on my portage to the lake,
I set out on the big lake. It is calm, so calm that I can see bird feathers in the water from a hundred yards. I think that I should photograph some of them, white delicates on dark blue, but there'll be a better one farther along. And yes, I know that is a trick of the mind that lets me continue on. Just at the entry to Union Bay, I spy two otters along the shore. When I get too close they retreat into the rocks that form the seawall and I leave as they won't come out until I am gone. Coming to the east marsh, there are buffleheads and common mergansers, both beautiful in black and white, with the former being small and stubby and the later being large and sleek. At the big beaver lodge, I turn north and head out across the bay to the north point. The ducks seem to be fairly scattered today and not in the tight flocks that I normally see. At the north marsh, I get the hankering to haul out a tire. I get a second one just feet from my dump site. It's not time to go home, so I return to the north marsh and get a big truck tire. They are a big and heavy project compared to a car tire and I can't lift them from inside the canoe, so it makes sense to use the calm day. As I turn toward home, I surprise a heron from just 15 feet. Actually, anytime you surprise a heron from that distance, it is a surprise for both parties involved.
The sun rises while I am in the east marsh, first peeping through frost covered cattails before rising orange into an almost clear sky. Redwing blackbirds begin to trill back and forth at each other. I head across the bay, straight for the railroad island, a marsh island formed around pilings from a rail pier that long ago dissolved. Ducks to the side of me take wing from one of the dirtbergs. I am too far off to be the cause and I spot an eagle, which seems to just be warming up for a later hunt. It lands on a boathouse. Just as I reach the railroad island, the eagle passes having circled around behind me. It lands in a tree at the mouth of the NE lagoon. I stop in the branches of the island's eagle perch. I have made a truly crappy thermos of coffee today. It reminds me of my dad's duck hunting brew from 40 years ago... it might actually be left-overs. A red tailed hawk overlooks the north marsh. I just sit, for a long time. It is cold and it is also a beautiful morning. Edging along #2 island, I scare up 3 snipe. There are always snipe here - something the birdwatchers rarely see because they stay on dry land. Near Marsh Island, I pause and explore the submerged debris field. It is definitely old building remains. There are bricks, wire and other fixtures, plus the old bathtubs that I have noted before. I recover a crushed copper tea kettle. The rest I leave for an archaeologist that is starving for a project.
There is no boat traffic of any sort. The man sitting on the south edge of Broken Island is a heron in my binoculars. As I near, the man moves to the far side of that marshy high spot and finally, flies away. A kingfisher greets me at Birch Island. As I paddle the edge of #2 Island, I flush a snipe - then a second snipe - and as my canoe scrapes against the cattails, a high pitched squeal, a third takes to air. I cross the channel to #1 Island and a 4th snipe darts off, and they do fly like darts. A red tailed hawk sits in a birch on the north shore and I paddle away to the east. Rounding the north point, I come across a flock of 200 coots and ducks. I stop and they move off at their own leisure. I stop in the center of the north marsh to pick out some trash and slip off a log, filling one of my new rubber boots with stinky swamp water. A fifth snipe takes off. Returning, a kingfisher waits on the east point of #1 Island while a heron owns the west point, until I get too near. I retrieve a car tire from the north side of Broken Island. It is both a target of opportunity and an excuse to make the trip last 10 minutes longer. But, the best part of the trip was meeting an older woman as I portaged to the lake. She told me that she canoed as a camp guide near Lake Itasca in Minnesota. And I told her the name of the lake, Many Point, because I went to camp there also. So, we traded canoe stories, because some people find that they have a canoe in their heart.
I put in at the east end of the ancient portage. If this was a hot day, people would say that the weather was just hanging in the air. But, it is cold. Still, the weather is just hanging in the air. It is calm and gray, and maybe 45 degrees. Flocks of coots and ducks are north of me forming dense patches of black specks in the water. It seems that they have no interest in flight, except that once in awhile a few get up to rejoin the main flock when it has drifted off out of safe range. I head up the east side of the west islands passing, the Rock Pile, Broken Island, Birch Island, Number Two and Number One. The names are mine alone. A hawk sits in the osprey tree just north of Number One. In the NE lagoon, I get out and explore the wetland that once was Yesler Creek. New knee length rubber boots makes exploring the marsh much more fun. I share the lagoon with one heron that is busy hunting 75 yards away. Leaving the lagoon, I spot 3 trumpeter swans on the easternmost of the dirtbergs. I close to 100 yards so that I can hear their honking without disturbing them. Crossing the middle of the bay, a flock of ducks overtakes me and I turn to see an eagle beginning an afternoon hunt. It goes for a flock to the west and circles over what might be a coot or pied billed grebe. The eagle is determined, but I doubt that a kill is in order - whatever it has forced to dive is exceptionally skillful at staying under. A second eagle is on a branch just above the south nest. I wonder if they will shift from the north nest that they have been using to this south one.
I struggle awake this morning and read enough news to show me that the ruling class is every bit as incompetent and misguided as it was in 1914. So, I take my canoe to the big lake and instead of heading north like I planned, I find myself heading away, paddling away, paddling away to the northeast, out into the big lake where no one is. It is gray and misting on the two mile crossing with a raw north wind. Open water crossings, especially in inclement weather and cold water, play head games with me. The far shore never seems to get closer and the near shore doesn't become more distant, until, in an instance, and never in the middle of the crossing, the shore I am heading for suddenly starts to near and where I came from has become small. I spot 10 western grebes on the way. Returning, I head west, straight across. It is a bit shorter crossing. There is a flock of 60 to 70 western grebes hunkered down near the midpoint. My guess is that the weather out on the salt water has sent them here today. Both eagles are at high points in the east marsh, which provides the only real color on such a gray day. The cattails have begun to take on the color and appearance of a cornfield in late fall, golden tan and shaggy. There is just a little ice left in the south lagoon and it breaks like the safety glass in an automobile when I paddle into it.
Then into the Fremont canal. It was once a thin creek that dropped twelve feet in about a half mile to Salmon Bay. That was over a hundred years ago. Salmon Bay is busy with Kvichak launching a new boat. There are two large cranes and a tug to handle the job. The tug wash nearly blows me into a moored boat as I pass. I stop at Fishermans Terminal for lunch and I am ready to return. I have paddled away enough. At Kvichak, the boat is less than halfway out of the shed. There are scaups in the canal. I don't know why they prefer here, but they do. I rarely see them in other parts of the waterway. I head down Lake Union and take out at a place that is 200 yards south of my normal spot. The view is all different. Such a difference for such a small distance, but all the buildings and boats are a different scale from here.
A heavy mist starts and it cuts the visibility to about a mile. There is a dreamy effect to the view. I see no swans, yet. Most of the ducks are near the north marsh. The widgeons provide a constant squeaky whistle, which seems a rather ridiculous call for a duck. Next time I get to design a duck I will keep that in mind. In the north marsh, I find myself sitting and watching, waiting for something that may never happen. The ducks take to air and an eagle comes into view flying east to west across the bay. It takes a half-hearted dive at one duck, but continues on until disappearing into the gray. And then, all returns to what it was. The flock is spread wide so that the opposite ends are beyond the limits of my peripheral vision. I like this, not because the ducks are infinite, but because for the moment they seem to be so.
Cold weather, cold enough to form good thick ice comes so rarely to my home. I put in at Portage Bay and play with ice, never getting more than 200 yards from my start. I break, cut and position sheets of ice on old pilings in the bay and when done with that, I find that I can stick even larger sheets into the mud that forms the bottom. I balance them carefully, as vertical as possible so that they will survive as long as possible. The sun begins to break down the ice, our weather not cold enough to keep it in suspended animation, soon the big sheets have a spider web of flaws running through them, which only serves to send the sunlight off in a thousand directions. Some of them will make it to sunset.
It is still cold, maybe about 20 degrees this morning, but sunny and just a light north wind. I put in on the big lake and I am rewarded by three river otters just 10 yards off of the shore. At first I though they might be muskrats, but one climbed up onto the lower rung of a ladder on a dock to eat a small fish. They seemed to be heading south and they disappeared before I had the canoe in the water. Paddling north, the sun bakes my back while the north wind stings the tips of my ears with cold. Ice has spread in Union Bay. The east marsh is frozen firm and there is ice forming on the marsh edges that face the big lake. The ice is over an inch thick just 3 or 4 feet in from the edge. I spend a couple hours cutting large slabs of ice and balancing them on the rotting pilings that are found in the area. Sometime during the day they will pick up the sunlight from just the right angle and give someone something to wonder about. While carrying ice to a pylon, a splash happens to my right. I think for a second that someone has thrown a rock, then a kingfisher springs up out of the water. There are three swans in the bay. I see them from a distance and don't bother to get closer, so it is possible that there could be some immature grays - they blend in with the background from this distance.
It is still cold and the ice has thickened. I start in Portage Bay by balancing over the canoe and scooting with one foot for the first 10 yards until the canoe settles through thinner ice into the water. Straight away, I head through the cut into a calm Union Bay with one eagle circling and brilliantly lit by the low winter sun over an unseen coot. This time the coot gets away and the eagle flies off low across the bay, and almost as if it is throwing a tantrum, it scatters a hundred ducks without showing any real interest at all. I crunch through the edge of the growing ice in the south lagoon. This is not like the ice last year, which froze during snowfall. That was weak and airy stuff and I paddled through it for most of the two weeks it was present. This ice is skater's ice, window ice - it is clear and dense, almost as clear as window glass. A half inch of it is hard to bust through with the canoe and 3/4 of an inch supports the boat completely. There will be no passage around the burial island, so I head north across the bay after talking with a kayaker who is enjoying the weather as much as I am. The swan from two days back is nowhere to be seen, but the view is one of my favorites - deep blue water with its horizon defined by a thin golden band of cattails, higher brush, and finally blue sky. Ice is forming in the west islands and along the north shore, so, it has definitely been cold and calm at night. There is a constant whistle/squeak of widgeons in mid bay.
It has been seasonably cold, not that it is always like this, but at some time during all winters, it is. I start at the south lagoon, which is partly frozen. The ice is only 5/8 inch at the thickest, so the canoe moves through with out too much difficulty. The ducks that like to winter in this patch of water have had to move elsewhere. These are dabblers mostly, mallards, widgeons, northern shovelers and so forth. I pick sheets of ice up and look through it like window glass. It is good smooth ice and would make good skating if it were a few inches thick. Exiting the east channel of the burial island, an eagle flies by heading north. A second one follows soon, but swings around back to the south and lands at the old nest that I spotted last year. Perhaps that nest will be used this year. As soon as I get to the north edge of the marsh I spot a swan 3/4 of a mile across the bay, and as I coast a few yards, a bald eagle appears just 10 yards to my right sitting on a log in the water. I am downwind and it is obviously eating a fish. I head across the bay and let the boat drift into the NE lagoon where a heron stands watch. Then, west past the swan - there is only one, I thought that I might find some immature gray swans. The grays are harder to spot from a distance. All of the birds are focused and behaving as if a storm is approaching. I return using the shelter of the west islands. The wind has been coming up since I started. It is cold enough that I wear gloves for the first time this season.
You can't see much from land, but this is where the big boats go, 
I put in on the big lake and decide to make this 1850 day. Settlers arrived here, permanently, during that decade. It is in the mid 30's with not one cloud anywhere and with a light cold wind out of the north. There is a small chop on the lake so that the surface is a dark blue green with black static running through it. Mt. Baker is clearly visible, snow and glaciers all white, on the north horizon, eighty miles away. There are buffleheads and canada geese along the shore, a cormorant or two, and four common mergansers. The common mergansers, a very large and pretty duck, have just arrived recently in the lake (this year). The 1850 skyline is about 100 feet higher, Douglas Firs, Western Red Cedars, maples, and alders replacing the rooftops. The lake is 10 feet deeper and it drains by a river 10 miles south, a river that no longer exists. It is steep where I put in, so that shoreline hasn't changed much, but in many places, where there are now houses, there is instead a quarter mile of shallow water and marsh. The Duwamish live all up and down this and other nearby lakes and along the rivers. Smoke, on a cold day like this, would be the most obvious marker of their village locations. At the opening to Union Bay, a potlatch house stands on the south shore while the point forming the north side is a tangle of forest. Exposed to winds during storms, there would be some massive trees lying on the ground there making land passage difficult. This bay is considered a rather well-to-do village site. In the NE corner of the bay is a longhouse, 2 more are a mile north from the current north shore, that mile being open water and marsh. Another stands near the smokestack that marks the University steam plant. The south shore is a good 1/4 mile south of its current location, and the largest island, the burial island, is the only island in the bay and it is much smaller than it is today. The Duwamish place their dead in boxes and place the boxes in trees on this island. Since then, it has been misused by the settlers and their descendents. This would be fine weather for hunting waterfowl, which would be present in much larger numbers than it is today.
I walked up and over the hill to start in Lake Union. It's about 50F with a good south wind. The clouds have broken up for the first time in several days. It is still mostly cloudy, but at least there is some definition in the clouds. I round the south end of the lake. It is mostly just big plastic yachts with names like "Adventure" and "Wanderlust" until I get over to the Society for Wooden Boats. They have a great collection of usable wood craft. I sit in the protection of the Swiftsure, an old lightship. I once got to roam all around the inside that ship. A DeHavilland Beaver float plane chugs past and then turns and guns it's motor for a downwind takeoff. Then, once again, it is as quite as the middle of a city can get. I enter the lagoon on the SW corner. It used to be a rough spot, overgrown with pilings in the water. The Wawona's masts were stored here, floating in the water, for some time. The area is being redeveloped for a park. It looks pretty sanitary at this point and I hope it will return to something a little more natural as time passes. This lake is in bad need of some natural shoreline. I paddle north and poke into the gaps between marinas to see what the shoreline looks like. A seagull with a broken wing sits out the rest of its life on a bit of rocky shore. People walk by on the trail above, but they can't see this due to the steep bank. I continue north and then east into Portage Bay, which is noticably calmer in spirit than Lake Union. The day is too nice and so I go through the cut and pause on the far end in calm water.
I put in at Portage Bay. There are some coots, some Canada geese and some buffleheads hanging out here. It is overcast, maybe 45F, with somewhat raw south wind.The beaver lodge that sits just 20 yards from the launch shows numerous signs of recent work. The beaver have left clear trails in four places leading from the water to the top of the lodge as they added branches to their structure. I look for good tracks, but find none as they seem to slip and slide in the mud just as much as I would have. I find a rusty half of a metal drum on nearby shore and haul it out with the canoe. I paddle north and just around the point into Lake Union for a short stop at Good Turn Park. I woke up last night thinking about the park. It is one of my favorites, a spot that is out of the way for both people on land and people on the water. In fact, it is more difficult to find from the water, so much so that I have never seen any other paddler use the park. But, more important for me is that I sense something good about the place. Maybe it is the name, Good Turn, which I think to be an excellent name for a park, but there is probably more. One time, I took my canoe out here - even though it means an extra half mile walk to home - and there were two boys playing here by themselves. It looked like cops and robbers to me. We didn't speak and I became just a temporary moving piece of landscape as the chase continued. I could see the creativity of the game and the ever changing rules. It was something kids should be allowed to do more often. I continue back east, and into the cut. Six Canada geese overtake me, low and silently as the wind carries any sound that they make away from my ears. I stop and admire the workings of their wings as they fly straight away from me. In the east channel of the burial island, I notice that the green has left the cattails and they are now a earthy golden color. A great blue heron gets up in protest of my arrival. Its blue gray colors, which I often take for granted, steal all of my attention.
Some coots in Portage Bay. Exiting the cut I spot a common merganser. A big flock of coots is moving out in mid-bay, so I look for an eagle and find one in a semi-hover a few hundred yards north. It retreats to the paper birch on one of the islands to rest before continuing with the hunt. I don't circle the bay today, but hang closer to shore due to the weather. I see two nutria not far from the eagle's perch. The temperature drops and it starts to rain hard. I head down into the protection of the south lagoons where I eventually take out.
but not too high and not so high as the towering monster clouds that occur in the midwest. Only a few birds in the big lake, just some widely scattered grebes and cormorants. The white throat of the grebes is spotlit by the low bright sun. Once in Union Bay, there are many more buffleheads around and I spot a few green winged teal, which are probably moving through on their way to someplace a little further south of here. I just keep moving until I get to the south end of Portage Bay. Then I walk the canoe back up the hill.
nearby. They are large and pretty in coloring with an unusually big and broad bill, hence the name. By the marsh island, a hooded merganser mixes in with a few wood ducks, which is pretty normal behavior for them. I spot a heron and wonder how much harder it is to hunt with the rain disturbing the surface of the water. I the main bay, there are buffleheads and a large flock of coots. When I near the bottom of the west islands, I notice the resident bald eagle pair tag team hunting. They pause for a moment in a paper birch on one of the islands, then back out to circling and swooping at an unseen bird in the water. I stop short of my intentions, so that they can use the paper birch if need be. They catch nothing on the second try, one eagle returns to the birch and one to the dirtberg out in mid-bay. On the third attempt, the male of the pair snatches a coot from the water and flies off. The female gets nothing and will have to keep hunting. I get into the NE lagoon and smell home heating oil. The old 6 foot pipe, which is listed as an overflow pipe, has a current coming out of it. I've never seen water actually flow out of this pipe, but the recent rain has probably created an "overflow" situation. Yuck that has collected in the pipe for some time is now being flushed. I head back south across the bay. Paddling in the east channel of the burial island, I drift off, aware that I am mentally off the material observation and finally going with the canoe. Beautiful fall leaves. No one anywhere. Sound muffled by raindrops. I ease up on a heron that is sleeping in a tree, a headless form because it has tucked it's head so deeply down onto it's chest between the edges of it's wings. It stays put while I pass. Taking out now makes no sense, so I paddle on and through the cut to the new launch at the south end of Portage Bay.
Out of the protected channel, a stiff cold breeze comes out of the east. It will make waves in the big lake, but in the bay it takes a very strong wind to make the smallest whitecap. I head to the NE corner, which turns out to be well protected from the wind. A kingfisher occupies the eagle's lunch counter perch this morning. I can paddle the edges of the cattails now that the lily pads have died off. My trash cleaning efforts have paid off more than I could have imagined. There is very little new trash at the bog edge and it is mostly cans and bottles. Most of the plastic is stuff that I couldn't reach last year, and there isn't much of it. There are, however, a lot of tennis balls. While picking some trash near one of the west islands, 200 coots start thrashing the water and I turn to watch an eagle circle low over them three times. It is not a dedicated effort at hunting and the eagle flies off after giving them all a good scare. I head through the cut and down Lake Union.
In the photo is the Portage Bay beaver lodge. A track up the side and fresh branches piled on top confirm that it is still in use. Once through the cut into Union Bay, a heron skims the surface, a pied billed grebe sinks as I approach, and six Canada geese fly directly overhead in an echelon. A work crane is to the east, a bad sign signaling the beginning of new bridge work - work that will widen the ugly and noisy highway that runs through this pretty spot. More coots are in the bay and they form a large mass out in the middle. The lily pads are so thin now that I can paddle the marsh edges with ease. I surprise some ducks and coots rounding a point. They have not yet learned that they are easy eagle food when they are so close to the shore. I retrieve a little trash and see mostly tennis balls. This may be a good sign because tennis balls are deliberately tossed into the lake, and if they are more obvious than other trash it may mean that trash takes longer to accumulate than I thought. From the north point, I see one eagle sitting at the lunch counter. I paddle over to a down wind location to see if it has been eating, but there are no feathers in the water. I spot some northern shovelers today also, the male which is very beautiful.
I put in today on the big lake. The water is all chop, a SE wind blows, but in this part of the lake, which is bounded both north and south by floating bridges, regular waves never seem to occur and the junk comes at me from all directions. The chop is always a foot high and sometimes two and I paddle from a kneeling position for extra stability. Rounding the point into Union Bay, the water calms and I pause to write and drink a cup of coffee. A small flock of black and white buffleheads is in front of me. They have returned from the arctic while I was in the woods making maps. -paddle - I near the biggest beaver lodge, which stands out more now that the summer vegetation has turned gold and begun to drop. A very large eagle sitting on a light pole signals to me that once again, it is duck eating season.
as they finish their feeding. There is frequent chatter and quacking and also the tipping of duck butts into the air. We get closer to them than we would in broad daylight. I show S the dirt atoll that has risen from the bay. A small sandpiper picks bugs from the mud of one of the little islands. Near the north shore of the bay we let the canoe rotate. There are dramatic differences in the sky depending on the direction we face. It is gray to the east and the color changes gradually until it becomes yellow-orange in the west. As we sit and the sun drops farther past the horizon S says that it is like watching an oil painting change into a watercolor.
marsh I recover my first 1970's beer can of the fall season. The lake level has dropped two feet and the marsh is giving up it's treasures as the bog stuff contorts. The ducks and coots are up here today, as usual. There are dozens of exposed pilings now. At one time a railroad stub ran out onto a pier in this area. I do not know for sure if these pilings are the remains, but they are in the right location. The trees and shrubs are beginning their shift to fall colors. Shades of purer green are giving way to tinges of yellow and red. The cattails and irises now have yellow edges on their spears and the collective effect says, "fall"
It is calm and not dark, but the world is in shadow. I head up the east channel of the burial island, preferring not to come out into open sky too quickly, but I really didn't think about it... direction by hunch. As I near the north end of the east marsh, a beaver swims across my path towing a branch. It doesn't seem to notice me until I am 10 yards away and it dives with a slap of the tail sending water 4 feet in the air. I continue on to a distance where it might feel safe, I pour a cup of coffee and then I sit still and watch. While I wait, there is a splash closer to my left and a moment later a second beaver surfaces. I decide I had better look all around, and there is number 3, just 50 yards behind my left shoulder. 1 and 2 continue to the lodge, but 3 swims a big wide S, watching me carefully. This leads my eye to number 4, which is motionless in the water. I figure out that I am interfering with their business, so I move back 20 yards. The sun comes up. A kingfisher flies overhead chattering all the way. 3 has now moved off toward the lodge and I see it no more. 4, however, continues to swim slowly back and fourth. Twice it dives with a slap of the tail, even though I haven't moved. 4 seems to be the guard beaver. After I back off another 50 yards, it watches for a few minutes and then disappears. I wait 10 minutes and with no more sign of beaver, paddle off across the bay. A 4 man shell rows by at speed heading into the sun. The coxswain, perhaps the wife of one of the rowers tells how beautiful the morning is by the expression on her face, which is brilliantly lit by the new sun. She glows golden. If it was my wife and I were rowing, I would stop and watch her and damned be to the other three in the boat. I find geese, ducks and coots on the north side of the bay. A redtail hawk lands in a tall alder tree. There are lone coots around. The eagles are probably still eating salmon. Independent coots, the rebels, are eagle food during the winter.
He asked if there was a reason that I used a canoe instead of a kayak. I replied that it was somewhat intangible and gave the surface answers that satisfy most people, but he didn't buy it. He asked then if I was from the upper midwest and I answered, Minnesota. "There, he said, "you've been imprinted." He was as right as anything and I know that my subtle Minnesota-Norwegian smile appeared, briefly, but even this perceptive fellow most likely missed it. Those smiles are not classified as such in dictionaries as they don't resemble smiles. They are only recognizable in relation to the previous facial expression. Very often, my canoe trips bring back the memories of Boyscouts paddling up the Ottertail River, crossing Round Lake and continuing up to a beaver dam that seemed far larger than I would have thought possible. Before returning we would take a short swim in the beautifully named lake, "Ice-crackin". Anyway, we exchanged names and shook hands and I headed north. It took 15 minutes to get my head back into my canoe, but it was all worthwhile.
The light has changed. Gone is the harsh washed out scenery of summer days when my photographs were all about the parlor tricks of nature; early light or dramatic clouds that filter rays and cast shadows. The fall light brings deep rich tones and long shadows. In fall, my photographs are about composition first, and keeping the shots with good light. The air has changed as well. The nights are longer, cooler and damper and day seems to struggle to return summer's warmth. The longer nights bring unplanned but orchestrated smells and flavors. It's not of showy flowers, but of the hidden deepness that sustains life. Summer air was tinned spices while fall is fresh cardamom seeds crushed this very second under my rolling pin. Winter will change all that, deadening the spices, but it will bring its own beauty in an even trade. Observations - the lily pads are browning at the edges. They show a summer's wear with chunks missing and deep tears. A flock of 100 coots has returned to the bay. Cormorants are sitting on the new dirtbergs that have hit the surface in mid-bay. I spot two green backed herons, some great blue herons, wood ducks, and two horned grebes.
From the canoe ...
This is the Sand Point area. Probably the most heavily used beach for about 20 miles in either direction. Since the beach is three miles from the parking lot (if you don't have a boat), and the parking lot is already a fairly remote spot, it stays very nice indeed.
I've already started to lose track of days. I can never trust my watch, it resets itself in my pocket from time to time. 
board walk are broken and suspect at best and there are frequent downfalls to clamber over or under. This is rainforest and one must remember to walk like an eskimo - baby steps with feet under your weight because any wood is slick as ice. I've learned not to turn my nose up at using a stout hiking staff when walking in the coastal forests. This is a very bad place to break a leg, especially when alone. My brimmed hat shields my face from brush. I wear my rain jacket, but my boots and wool pants are soaked by the time I get to the ocean at Kayostia Beach. It is beautiful and no one is here as it is several miles of shore walking from any other beach access. It was entirely worth the effort.
It was a very quiet night. I heard exactly four airliners and later, one small critter padded around the campsite for awhile. Up at 6:30 to a thick overcast and almost no wind. Oatmeal, coffee, load canoe, head south. I follow the east shore past Preachers Point where there is a private house (maybe only 10 private houses - grandfathered in when the lake became National Park land). I head into the bay at the south end, named - South End, but stop on a point to explore the forest a bit. A deer has left tracks on shore. It's old growth forest and fairly easy to walk in.
I'm back on the water after two weeks. The day is warm, but the wind is light. I am lazy and don't take advantage of the cool morning, putting my canoe in during the heat of the day. But, I put in on the sound and the millions of gallons of 57F water cools the surrounding air and it is all quite pleasant. I head from my favorite Elliott Bay launch west to 4 mile rock and then north to Discovery Park. I see two osprey as I paddle along the bluffs and also a flock of small sea gulls. A very large person in a small kayak wallows in my direction, but I turn around and paddle back. I'm watching the trees and shore for birds and I look forward and there is the black head of a seal, or perhaps sea lion, watching me. It disappears the second that I notice it. I forget to reset my camera's white balance and all of my photos are blue.
All morning, my head has useless clutter echoing inside. I can't get started on anything, don't want to make art. It's time to be away. I walk my canoe to Lake Union. It is mostly calm and cloudy and it could rain at anytime. I head out across the lake towards the Fremont canal and when I get there I decide to keep heading west. Once through the canal, the paddling becomes much more industrial, but in an interesting way. There are a couple of tugboat companies, including Foss, who have massive ocean going tugs and their own drydock and shipyard (the tugs in the photo are a competitor, Foss's boats are green). From here I keep going all the way to Fishermen's Terminal where the best fish-n-chips in town can be had. I eat near the fishermen's memorial, a very nice piece of sculpture in the right location. I head back and take out and Good Turn Park and walk a mile and a half home. There is less clutter in my head.
Today I put in halfway down the big lake from where I live. I can paddle over to the tree lined shoreline of Seward Park, which is always pleasant. There is a breeze out of the south today on this cloudy and humid day. It is not really a light breeze or a fresh breeze. It is a distinctly soft breeze where the air gently folds and wraps around any exposed skin and one feels enveloped by it more than anything. I paddle across to the rich island and back, stopping along the shore of the park to fill one of my ballast buckets with blackberries.
I put in today on the SE side of Lake Union. I just paddle and have no real aim today. The marinas and docked boats don't inspire. I head up to the Fremont Channel, but don't have the gumption to continue in that direction. I end up in Portage Bay, but I don't feel like getting out of the canoe yet, so I head through the cut to the south lagoons and take out there. 
