Adventures of Ken: Blackstone Bay Kayak Trip

Last weekend I went another of one of the best trips that I have ever been on. I keep saying this on almost every trip that I have been on in Alaska. This one, I planned and invited all the interns to go for a two day kayaking trip to Prince William Sound out of Whittier, Alaska. The plan was to take a water taxi out to Blackstone Bay, paddle around and then camp, and then paddle back into Whittier on Sunday. Blackstone Bay is famous for its huge tidewater glaciers. Tidewater glaciers are glaciers that empty straight into the ocean. They are quite magnificent when the ice calves, or breaks off, into the water.

We were blessed with excellent weather, which is suprising in Prince William Sound because it is actually considered a rainforest because it rains so much there. It didn't rain on us and there were blue skies each day, which made the trip and paddling more agreeable. Kayaking is fun, except when the wind picks up and you are soaked due to rain.

I was worried about people being immature and trying to flip kayaks or accidentally falling in the water. This can be potentially dangerous, because the water is around 40 degrees. At that temperature, it would not take you very long to get hypothermia and die if you fell in, so you have to be carefull. We taught everybody what to do if they did flip, and told them about how serious it could be if they fell in, and I think this sobered them up. This did not stop us from having water fights with the bildge pumps!

Saturday night we had hot dogs and sat around the fire and talked until the sun set (probably 1:00 am?). The setting sun made the water look like a grey-blue glass. As we sat pondering how pretty the scenery was, I said, "You know, I think Alaska is where desktop wallpapers are born." Even though it was a nerdy comment, I think that comment definitely verbalized what everyone was thinking.

Sunday morning we got up around 8:00 and broke camp really quickly for a group of 14. We had oatmeal for breakfast and then got to paddling. We had 13 miles to go, which equates to around 5 hours. The weather was really warm on the water, probably close to 80 deg. I quickly stripped to shorts and a t-shirt. There was no wind, which made paddling easy, but the sun bouncing off the water and our kayaks made it pretty hot. People started to get a little cranky near the end of the day, but I understood because we were doing a lot of paddling. During the paddle we stopped multiple times to take strech breaks and eat food. On one beach the water was crystal clear, so four or five people, including myself, decided to go for a swim. The water was chilly, but it felt amazing after being hot all day. It felt great to have the sun on me after a long summer of pants and long t-shirts.

Adam called Sunday a sucker day. A lot of times, the weather in Alaska is terrible, and just when you're about fed up and ready to leave, mother nature will send you a beautiful day that will "sucker" you back in to Alaska. This whole summer has been full of sucker days.