Don't Sink Your Banana!

 I have a hard time sitting still. 

I mean that figuratively and literally, as I have restless leg syndromes (aka heebie jeebies, aka "Flitter Trickies" as Camden named them many years ago). Maybe it's my PNW roots, but if the sun is shining and the temperature is nice around here, I literally can't be inside. 

The sun was shining today and I planned on just heading to our favorite haunt in the summer - Boy Scout Beach. I texted a friend to see if she wanted to join us with her kids. She responded with a "we're going on a hike - right now, want to join us?"

Obviously, because Adventure is Out There. 

So I literally threw a lunch together and got our daypacks situated and off we went to Near Island to hike the South end trail and have lunch on the beach. We've done this hike 100 times but I still enjoy it, and it's outside. 

After enjoying Near Island for a couple hours, we went home so Calen could do his newspaper route and mow a neighbor's lawn (I'm telling you, summer lawnmowing jobs have withstood the test of time and generations), but I still wanted to go out and do something as a family, since Brad missed the hike. I didn't really want to hike again and it was high tide. What should we do? Should we sit home and go out another day?

Obviously, never. 

We packed the Banana (our adoring name for our bright yellow inflatable kayak), grabbed Subway for dinner, and went to the Boy Scout lodge to borrow their hard sided canoe (after all, Brad being Scoutmaster needs to have some sort of perks) and headed out for our second adventure of the day. I told him that I thought it would be great to launch from the sea plane base at the far end of south Near Island, since I noticed earlier during the hike that the waters in the channel were incredibly calm. Well, count on me for a misadventure, because the base has zero boat launches and no public access either. So we turned around and headed for the Near Island marina, which has duel boat launches but really is geared for the plethora of fishing vessels coming in and out. 

If Kodiak was ever to have a rush hour, this was it, in the form of fishing boats being taken in and out of the boat launch. We settled to the side of it and ate our Subway, and then launched the canoe and the Banana during a short break between fishing boat launches. 

We probably looked like quite the spectacle. Talk about a fish out of water. Pun intended.

 

The water was absolute glass today, not just in the marina but out in the channel as well. We cruised past the dock full of a hundred sea lions, in which they snorted and grunted and were extremely curious of us going by (maybe they've never seen a floating banana before).

After the sea lion docks we went past the breakers and navigated around about half of Near Island. Getting around the first corner was tricky, because we decided to "thread the needle" and get in between a series of large rocks. The boys were arguing in the Banana behind us, and a rock came out of nowhere in front of the canoe in which Brad had to hit the brakes and avoid (I have an arm injury from playing city league softball and am completely useless). The boys were still arguing as we were giving out directions, and I had to shout "DON'T SINK YOUR BANANA!!!" to get their attention. 

You know, things you never thought you'd say outloud before you become a parent. 

Once we were in open water, the lack of waves still made if perfectly glassy, so we could watch jellyfish float by and the occassional sealion pop up to investigate us. We got about a third of the way around Near Island before we decided to cross the channel to some random uninhabited island, because we can, that's why. 

Once we landed on Popof Island (thanks Google Maps, not to be confused with Popof Island further in the Aluetians), we wandered around and skipped rocks for half an hour, looking out over Near Island across the channel (and the beach we had lunch at). 

Popof Island, the tiny little island you never knew existed. 

Rock skipping. Near Island is in the forefront, Kodiak in the back

GLASSY water. Our little Popof island behind us. 

This was a great adventure because while we've gone kayaking/canoeing before, we had never done it in open water before, and it gave us a new and neat perspective of Kodiak from a different angle. 

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