Kayak Utopia

Group shot: Sam, Me, Darcie, & Marcia

This past weekend (Fri. 18th - Sun. 20th), 3 other girlfriends (Darcie, Sam, and Marcia) and I went kayaking out of Whittier, Alaska (~60 mi./90km) southeast of Anchorage. All 3 days were out of this world. No clouds in the skies and birds everywhere! :) We kayaked 12 miles the first day to Surprise Cove (the camping spot was more of a mystery than the cove!). Marcia had a big surprise when she realized she forgot her tent poles! But, the ingenuity of the good doctor never ceased to amaze me! See pic below! The next day was spent soaking in the rays, drinking coffee, gorging on crack chips, chocolate, and whatever else we could find! We left that evening for Decision Pt. (~4mi. away) across some 2ft waves (no big deal) and Blackstone Bay. The next day we left ~noon (after a group massage-aren't girls the best??) and were riding the high tide in to Whittier by 2:30pm - again, what was the hurry to get back?? All of us could not believe how fast the weekend flew by and were more than a bit down to come back to town. Such is life I guess...
Enjoy the pics!

p.s. I must send a special thanks to Darcie since she was brave (and nice!) enough to share a kayak and a tent with me for the weekend. Anybody who's done that with me before knows just how tough that can be! ;)

Me kayaking (obviously)

Darcie kayaking out of Whittier harbor (isn't she so cute??)

Another group of kayakers leaving Suprise Cove


Lounging at Surprise

Sam taking in the view in her self-made brown kayak!

Marcia gazing at the view as we're leaving Suprise Cove


Sam kayaking towards Whittier (can you see her in the left corner??)


Blackstone Glacier


Whittier in all it's glory


Unknown glacier field

Another unknown glacier

Can you believe these are the same tents?? ;) I'm sure you all will be impressed with Marcia's tenacity (i.e. putting up a tent without poles!) just as I was!

AND NOW FOR THE BIRDIES!!!

I took a lot of nice shots of the whimbrels (or at least I think so!)

Can you say whimbrel-mania?? ;)

PIGU's!!! a.k.a. pigeon guillemots (but doesn't pigu (pronounced pee-goo) sound as cute as they look??)

A couple of marbled murrelets

Common Merganser taking off (my personal fave)

A pair of Barrow's Goldeneyes

And last, but certainly NOT least are my beloved Black-legged Kittiwakes

The Beginning

This is something that I've talked about doing for the past 2 months and thinking about doing for the past year. I met many people on my recent travels through Chile and Argentina who gave me their blog sites and I thought this was such an excellent idea to see what direction these wonderful people had gone after our brief encounters. The reason I have called this blog "Distractions" is because it seems that I can find everything is substantially more interesting than finishing my master's thesis. The start of this blog will be slow, sometimes non-existent, but then will leap forward with lightning speed. Not unlike how time works I suppose. The many distractions that I will eventually post will all add up to what I call my life.