Saturday paddle around Pennock Island

[RainWaves]

 Whenever the winds are light, and the tides are right, I like to paddle around Pennock Island, which is here in Tongass Narrows in front of Ketchikan. I hadn't been around since early Summer, but this past Saturday was just perfect, with Sun, glassy conditions for the first half, and a light NW headwind for the trip back up the West Channel. Here's a link to a page on my site that has a Google map embedded, so you can see what I'm talking about: http://www.supsoutheast.com/paddle_KTN.html  It is the island in the lower half.
 
 From my shop, it is about 7.3 Nautical Miles (8.4 Statute) around, and I usually average about 2 hours. With our tides and currents, I try to leave about 1.5 hours before Low water, to catch the ebb down either side, then run with the flood back up. I've learned the hard way that the current often switches well before low slack! Works out well when it works, but more than once I've had headwinds (and bucking current) in both directions .

 Anyway, I grabbed my small waterproof Fuji and snapped a few pictures along the way. Nothing spectacular, and it takes pretty fuzzy pictures at best.  The patches of Bull Kelp on the South end had Spider Crabs hanging on to almost all of them, and I thought to stick the camera under water to snap a pic as I drifted through them. Was kind of cool, all of them hanging on with their back legs, and claws out to me as I drifted over and through them Need to remember to bring it along more often. Too many times I just wait for the wind to blow and only think of the GoPro to capture a Downwind run.