I finally took my new kayak out for a real trip.  It did a great job.  The weather this afternoon turned out to be perfect.  I had hoped to get a full day in but after being on call overnight for my job, I needed to sleep in a bit.  Then my wife decided she wanted to hit up some stores down in Olympia instead of being stuck at home.  So by the time we packed up and I had her drop me off, it was 1pm before I was on the water.  But it there had been a morning fog that had stuck around till lunch time so this was fine.  By the time I was on the water, there was some high clouds but lots of blue sky and sunshine.  The temperature was warm enough I stripped off my spray jacket half way through my trip.  I went to the Nisqually Delta area where I'd paddled in borrowed Coho kayak 3 years ago.  Here's a link to a topo map of the area and here's a link to a local.live.com map of my trip with a few points and the approximate path added.

According to some tide charts I found here, the tide was coming in.  I had missed low tide by a few hours.  This was a good thing since with the tide out it exposes more mud flats and there's fewer places to paddle.  Also, had the tides been heading out while I was paddling over the mud flats and I wasn't paying attention, I could have stranded myself and been stuck in mud till the tide came back in.  So I left Luhr beach at 1pm and just lazily paddled across McAllister creek towards the Nisqually mud flats.  The Nisqually Delta is of course a delta.  Silt and soil has been building up for centuries.  The dry soil that currently exists used to be underwater and most likely the mud flats that are covered up by the tides will also rise up and be dry land.  At least that's my understanding of it.  So I found myself in water ranging from a few feet deep to 6 inches deep above the mud.  I was constantly having to find a new route as I would run into sections too shallow for my kayak to go over.  This area is a wildlife refuge and it allowed for some great photo opportunities.  I was at least 200 yards from actual dry land even though in most of the areas I could have gotten out and walked (albeit in mud up to my ankles probably).  And probably another 100 yards from me out towards the sound birds were still standing up in the shallow waters.  That may give you some ideas as to the size of these mud flats.  I was able to get some good pics of Blue Herons which were out in plenty.  There was also ducks, Canadian geese flying overhead, seagulls and at one point I spotted a bald eagle with a small fish in its talons heading to a tree near Luhr beach.

I was in the middle of the mud flats and I was approaching what I thought was a sandbar above the water with a mass of driftwood lying on it when the driftwood started flopping around a bit.  I pulled out my binoculars for a close up look and realized it was about a dozen harbor seals sunning themselves.  I approached as quietly as I could but still managed to scare a few from the exposed mud back into the water.  But several of them weren't as intimidated and posed for some pictures.  It was surreal to drift there with seals staring at me from their little piece of dry land and have others nearby poking their head out of the water just enough to keep an eye on me.  After that I headed towards the shoreline on the east side of the mud flats.  I wanted to get out to take some pictures, stretch my legs and eat a little.  As I was heading towards the shoreline I crossed paths with some duck hunters in a small zodiac style raft motoring their way back to the boat launch.  We waved at each other.  I thought about stopping them to ask if anyone else was out hunting that I should be aware of but I figured that I was in a bright yellow PFD and spray jacket in a bright red kayak.  I'd be easy enough to spot.  I was about 100 yards or so out from the shore when I heard several gunshots ring out from the spot of land I was headed towards.  While I wasn't frightened I was a bit disturbed by this.  I pulled out my binoculars and picked out on the shore the distinct lines of a small hunting boat with camo covered figures aboard.  I couldn't seen enough detail though to see what they were doing.  There's was a few additional shots.  As far as I can figure, I was probably about to scare off several ducks in the area and they were either warning me that they were there and wanted to be left alone or trying to get their targets before I scared them off.

It was a bit annoying and unnerving to feel like I was being shot at but I knew that either way, I didn't want to disturb them anymore.  I scoped out the beach to the north and took a 45 degree turn towards a portion of the shoreline that appeared to be empty.  I found a nice spot and pull my boat up onto the barnacle covered rocks, adding some scratches to the hull of my boat, and had a nice 30 minute break.  While waiting, I had to pull my boat up higher onto shore a few more times as the tide rose about a foot while I was there.  I took several pictures, ate some food I had brought along and just enjoyed the view.  It is about 2.5 miles from Luhr beach to the point where I was taking my break.  I'd taken about 1.5 hours to get there since I'd had to pick my way through the shallow water and had stopped to take a few pictures on the way over.  It wasn't a very quiet location since the beach was just below some railroad tracks that were up on the hill about 20 yards from the edge of the water.  A few military choppers also were making their way overhead and occasionally there was some gunfire from the duck hunters.  But the scenery made up for it. 

At 3pm I headed back.  The tide had come in considerably so I didn't have to worry about getting stuck on any mud flats and I headed straight towards Luhr beach.  I found 3 of the harbor seals perched on some partially submerged logs that were providing a somewhat horizontal surface for them to perch themselves on.  I took a few more pictures.  It took me around 40 minutes to get back to Luhr beach.  Shanda wasn't back yet from shopping and so I called her so she knew it was time to head over to pick me up.  I paddled up McAllister creek a little and realized that when I had started paddling some clouds had been blocking a view of the top half of Mt. Rainer over the tree line on the east side of the delta.  The water was glass on the creek.  It was a great ending to the afternoon.  The weather had been great with only a slight breeze on my return trip from the east side of the delta.  If I had the whole day I probably could have headed over to Anderson Island in a triangle pattern.  I believe there is a water side campground over there meant for boaters that I'll have to try out one of these days.  The photos have been posted in their own album titled "Nisqually Delta trip - Oct 23 2006".  For high res photos go to my flickr page.

Location:  Nisqually Delta (Bird's eye view link)

I'm finally getting my new kayak out for some real kayaking.  I've only had it on a couple of local lakes for some short runs since I bought it last spring.  Hopefully this post won't jinx it but the weather looks good with clouds only coming in during the afternoon and wind only at 2mph.  I've kayaked here before about 3 years ago in a borrowed Coho kayak.  It was great and seemed like a pretty sheltered area so since I'm a bit rusty, this will be a good location.  Hopefully I'll get locks of pics and will post a trip report soon.

*The attached pics include one of my new kayak (at a local lake), and two from my Nisqually trip 3 years ago.