The annual Perseid meteor shower was upon us. With the moon in its waning crescent and clear weather in the forecast, 2023 promised to be one of the best years for seeing the Perseid meteors.
Blind Island in the San Juan Islands seemed like the perfect vantage. Blind Island is not close to any major city, so light pollution is low. The island is only sparsely vegetated, so there is a wide view of the sky. With high hopes for a good meteor shower, I took my brother, Nathan, and my two kids, Maya and Leon, out to Blind Island for an overnight.
Route map. Shaw County Park is the closest point that offers both overnight parking and a public launch beach.
My wife, Rachel, was on Lopez Island for the weekend, performing at a Flamenco show. We called her from the water as we paddled north through Upright Channel, hoping she could spot us from Odlin County Park on the northwest trip on Lopez. Rachel and her troupe were on the beach at Odlin, but they couldn’t see us across the mile-wide channel.
The flood current was favorable to our counterclockwise rotation around Shaw Island. Both on the northbound leg through Upright Channel and the westbound leg through Harney Channel, we received a small but significant boost from the current.
Alex and Maya kayaking off Shaw Island. I ran aground exiting Indian Cove, just off Picnic Point, but I was able to scooch my boat off the rocks.
Nathan kayaking off Shaw Island. This was Nathan and my first time kayaking together since our trip to Cabbage Island in 2018.
Nathan kayaking with sailboats in Upright Channel. There was a sailing regatta in progress, but when the wind died later in the afternoon, we kayakers were able to overtake some of the sailboats.
Leon, Maya, and Nathan kayaking Upright Channel. We saw harbor seals and a river otter, but unusually for the San Juans, we did not see any harbor porpoises.
Arriving to Blind Island. The landing beaches are easier at higher tides.
The kids made Blind Island their private reserve. Sometimes in the company of the two adults, often in no one’s company but their own, they scrambled up the steep hiking trails of the island and crawled across the seaside rocks. Nathan and I took advantage of the kids’ frequent absences to shelter in the shade of a few Douglas-firs and shore pines.
In the evening, we played a family chess tournament. Nathan and I tied one another at one game apiece, but the kids defeated all comers. Leon was particularly formidable, playing such devastating openings as rook-hops-across-the-pawns-and-back, first theorized by Nimzowitsch in the 1920s, and of course the famous eight-pawns-taken-in-a-single-move, which debuted in championship play during the Botvinnik–Capablanca match.
Maya hiking Blind Island. Maya would use her sun hat as a megaphone to taunt the grown-ups.
Leon hiking Blind Island. Three-year-old Leon would sometimes get a little turned around on the island, but he always found his way back to the trail and back to the camp.
Leon and Uncle Nathan on highest point of Blind Island. The island is only 150 yards across at its widest.
Orcas Landing seen from Blind Island. While we were waiting on Shaw Island for the ferry to take us home, Nathan hopped on an inter-island sailing as a foot passenger to bring us back hamburgers and fries from the hotel at Orcas Landing.
Maya sitting on rock, Blind Island. At high tide, the beach on Blind Island all but disappears.
Grandmaster Leon crushing the board. Another of Leon’s most irrefutable tactics was to recover his own captured pieces by taking one or more of the opponent’s pieces, similar to reviving a teammate in dodgeball by catching a ball thrown by the opposing side.
Blind Island chess tournament. Uncle Nathan dashes himself to pieces attempting to crack Leon’s iron wall.
Uncle Nathan and Maya taking an evening stroll. The kids were always summoning the grown-ups to witness one amazing discovery or another.
Blind Island sunset. I had forgotten to pack any sleeping pads, but the night was so warm and the grass so soft we did not miss them.
There was only one other kayaker on Blind Island when we arrived Saturday afternoon, a soloist named Jeff who had paddled across from Orcas Landing to witness the meteors. Later in the day, however, crowds of kayakers arrived to camp. All four campsites were occupied, and newcomers had to wedge themselves in wherever they could.
Wildlife was sparse on such a small, barren island. Several pairs of white-crowned sparrows had recently borne chicks, which hopped about the island in seeming disregard for the human lumbering everywhere. In the evening, clouds of non-biting midges appeared above some of the treetops. Their tiny wings gleamed white in the setting sunlight.
The weather only grew clearer and clearer throughout the weekend. During the paddle home on Sunday, we were treated to magnificent views of Mount Baker, one of my favorite volcanoes.
Due to the ferry schedule, we had to buck the flood current on our way home. Even at its worst, we were always able to find eddies along the shore. We faced nothing more challenging than a single, hundred-yard-long tiderace and clapotis some six inches high.
White-crowned sparrow, Blind Island. This youngster’s crown shows not the faintest trace of white.
Midges on Blind Island. There were no mosquitos on the island, so we slept with the tent unzipped.
Leon clambering on rocks. A ten-knot wind in the morning made us think about taking out on the beach in Blind Bay, but by the early afternoon the wind died down, so we paddled all the way around back to the county park.
Foster Point and Mount Baker, seen from Harney Channel. Even the mighty Mount Baker loses much of its snow cover during August.
The meteor shower was a bust. Nathan and I were both so worn out after a day in the hot August sun that we slept right through the night. Nathan managed to spot two or three meteors while he was awake for a few minutes around eleven o’clock, whereas I did not see a single one. Jeff, the solo kayaker, told us that he, too, had conked out early, although he stayed up late enough to catch thirty or so meteors over the course of an hour.
Missing the meteors was of no significance. Like so many of the various reasons I give to go kayaking—seabirds, whales, petroglyphs, and even Kayak Bill—the meteors were not the real reason to be out there. They were only an excuse to immerse ourselves in the natural world for a few days.
—Alex Sidles