Home Safely

We finally arrived at the end of our journey this afternoon, terminating the Voyage of the Pilgrims at Boston Harbor (which in this case is near Olympia, Washington, at the south end of the Puget Sound, not in Massachusetts). We had not originally planned to paddle this far, but having settled into our daily routine of paddling south is seemed to make sense to keep going until we were out of water to paddle. We're now back home thanks to a timely pick-up from Kirti who arrived at the boat ramp by car at exactly the same time as our arrival by kayak.  I must admit that it was a bit of a slog paddling the 150 miles or so from the San Juan Islands to Olympia in just three and a half days, but I don't think it was as hard as battling the wind and tide for 300 miles down the east side of Vancouver Island! Our journey there coincided with a period of near perpetual northbound tidal currents during daylight hours, and in case that was not enough, we got a heavy dose of South Easterly winds to go with it. This combination made for some very hard miles and we spent a good deal of time "counting barnacles" along the shore line. After wondering how all that water could travel north and not flow back south again we came to the realization that on the BC coast tidal streams flow north perpetually but the water comes back down south in the form of rain, hence completing the cycle! Fortunately, we have had some drier sunnier weather over the past week or two so camping has been much easier and we have been able to dry our gear. We have some cleaning up and resting to do over the next few days, but we hope to post some pictures and a more detailed trip log in the near future, so stay tuned. -- Jon