Capturing the Moment

Quiet nook from a kayak Morning Office View   For the past two weeks I have been leading expedition guiding trips around the San Juan Islands, Deception Pass, and Olympic National Park. The trips are seven days, round trip from Seattle. My base is the beautiful Safari Quest. I like to think of it as the flagship for the UnCruise fleet. She can carry 22 passengers and 10 crew. The crew includes a pastry chef, bartender, steward, hotel manager, executive chef, captain, chief mate, deckhand, engineer, and an expedition leader (that's me). It is an amazing crew and to make things even better we most often have pretty amazing guests.  Rough skinned newt!   We only run the Pacific Northwest trips during the shoulder season. The bulk of the summer sailing season is in Southeast Alaska. Due to the pandemic it had been a couple of years since we've run these PNW trips, but we jumped right back into it. The itinerary is very active, with big hikes almost every day. One comment I of...

A Taste of Alaska in Washington's Olympic National Park    View from Hurricane Ridge Inside the forest at Lake Crescent Port Angeles describes itself as the gateway to Olympic National Park. This is where we dock the Safari Quest on the last day of our Pacific Northwest trips here in Washington. Scenic, 5000+ ft Hurricane Ridge is a 45 minute drive, and the glacially carved Lake Crescent is only 30 minutes away, giving us two great options to choose from.   I have been taking my groups to Hurricane Ridge, to explore the totally different environment that one can find at 5000+ft . Mountain firs and hemlocks abound, grey jays jabber from the limbs, and Mt Olympus pokes up from behind the remaining glaciers deep within the park’s 1,000,000 acres.   During the spring trips we encountered 10ft snowbanks… I’ll be sure to bring snowshoes next Spring. During the fall we found that we could escape the heat from below and exchange it for nice crisp mountain...

  The UnCruise Pacific Northwest trip holds some real gems for our typical adventure travelers. There are places where we can kayak, stand-up paddle board, beach walk, and go for a skiff tour all before lunch. We can hike up ridge lines and quite often end up atop the tallest summit in the island archipelago. The wildlife abounds and the geology stuns. Some days are just so perfect here that even a casual kayak excursion can be etched in your mind for years to come. And for someone like me, it is always nice to have a few pictures to make that memory last even longer.   This week we had such a kayak around one of the northernmost   San Juan islands, a little chunk of wilderness called Sucia Island. It is a state marine park, filled with well maintained trails for hiking but lacking the crowds that generally go along with such trails. There is no way to get to the island except by private craft…and there is no way to get there quite like the luxury and comfort of...

Hard Charging Mountain Climb     Near the top of Eagle Cliff   As the expedition leader aboard the Safari Quest one of my many daily challenges is to find destinations that can offer multiple level s of challenge to the guests. This may be a choice between a kayak and a skiff tour, a beach walk or a long hike, or maybe even a climb up a mountain vs driving up. The more options that guests have for activities means it is easier to self select which group to go out with. One of the great things about the Pacific Northwest itinerary is that every spot we go to gives us multiple options of difficulty level so I can easily personalize the activities for the passengers we have on that week. Hard Chargers on the Summit    This week we had a group of hard charging hikers onboard so I searched for a good challenge. It came in the form of a mountain ridge climb on the little known Cypress Island, one of the 172 San Juan Islands. The total hike is only...

 There is just something about lighthouses that I find so photogenic. This tiny lighthouse sits on the western edge of San Juan Island in Lime Kiln State Park and is a favorite of whale watchers and sunset gazers. The island of Vancouver can be seen across the straits and the rugged mountains of the Olympic peninsula can be seen on a clear day as well. The setting sun on my last visit to the lighthouse this season was so pretty that I just had to jump for joy and immortalize it in a picture. Here is to a great 2017 Pacific Northwest fall season on the Safari Quest.

Sunrise Humpbacks Humpback Photos   After going a few days without seeing any cetaceans (whales), we got lucky running across a few humpback whales near Thrasher Rock in British Columbia. It looked like a mother with a yearling, maybe getting ready for the long migration south to the breeding area. While we watched the duo we were also basking in a beautiful sunrise. I guess this is why they call this part of British Columbia's coast the 'Sunshine Coast.' The colors and backlighting added a little uniqueness to an already magical encounter with these whales. Big Bull headed my way    It turns out that our whale watching for the day was not over after we left the humpbacks. A few hours later, close to the Canada USA border, I spotted the telltail tall black dorsal fin of an orca from a couple miles out. I couldn't believe my binoculars just happened to scan right over that area as it came up for a breath. It took another fifteen minutes for us to get...