Paddling Resurrection Bay

If you travel to the Kenai Peninsula, how can you not want to get in the water?

We cruised through the water to Kenai Fjords National Park.  We splashed through the water on our hike to Tonsina Point.  But we hadn't paddled through the water.  We thought that if the weather were warm and the winds calm, we could take our little flat-water kayaks out onto Resurrection Bay, despite the fact that it gets typical ocean waves.  To stay safe, we agreed that we should find a route along the shoreline.  If the waves were too rough, we might swamp, and if we swamped or tipped, we would be in frigid waters with the risk of quick hypothermia.

Early on in our stay, we scouted possible launch locations, and we decided that Lowell Point Beach, where we had started our hike to Tonsina Point, would be a good place to start.  The beach is shallow enough that we could launch without much difficulty.  Here, Kathy demonstrates a successful launch from Lowell Point Beach:

No sooner had we gotten on the water than we spotted a loon cavorting through the water.  We got photos of him (her?) in a classic "loon" pose, but we thought this candid photo would help you understand how active these birds are:

The waves were a challenge.  They made it hard to launch initially, and then, because they rolled in at an angle to the beach, we had to use a tacking method to head the direction we wanted.  Paddling sideways to the waves risked swamping, and paddling perpendicular to the waves would take us the wrong direction, so we found a tack at an angle to the waves, adjusting periodically to avoid getting too far from shore or getting off-line:

The granite shoreline had some very interesting rock formations, that we admired as we paddled southward toward the mouth of Resurrection Bay:

This was a Saturday, so, in addition to the picnickers on the beach, we encountered at least a half dozen groups of kayakers on sea kayak tours.  Below, Kathy paddles past one groups.  She informed the tour guide that she liked his office.

Paddling on to Tonsina Point, we encountered other sea kayak tours.  They reminded us of a group of little ducklings paddling along through the water behind "mama" tour guide:

While we make fun of the sea kayak tours, we recognize that they were better equipped than we were.  Their long, thin kayaks have rudders, giving them stability in the waves and the ability to hold a direction better that our little flat-bottomed tubs.  On the other hand, we found that we tended to move faster in the water than they did.  We think that was because most of the kayakers in the tours were beginners and were sorted two-to-a-kayak.  Watching them, we could see that the two paddlers rarely knew how to paddle in unison without countering each other's efforts.  In our solo kayaks, we could move quickly and deliberately toward our destination.

Before long, we reached Tonsina Point, which was the destination of our earlier hike.  However, this time, we landed our kayaks on the northern shore of Tonsina Creek so that we could explore the beach on that side of the stream.  We could see day-hikers strolling along the far shore of the stream where we had walked when we visited it on our hike.  This time, however, we could splash through the shallow braids of the stream in our water boots, whereas on our hike we had been reluctant to wade in the water with our hiking boots.

Having satisfied our curiosity about this side of Tonsina Creek, we sat and at our picnic lunch:

Here is a view of where we left our kayaks as we walked the rocky beach --

-- and this is a view the opposite direction, across Tonsina Creek, into the fog that hung along each shore of Resurrection Bay that day:

We could see Lowell Point, a small residential community, off in the distance, past a huge flock of gulls that must have been convening over some piece of food:

Walking back to our kayaks, we put them back in the water, preparing to paddle back up the shoreline of Resurrection Bay.  However, we turned and took one last look back at Tonsina Beach before pitting our muscles and skills against the waves of the bay:

It wasn't a long outing, but we got a lot of exercise paddling against the waves and wind, and we learned a lot about navigating our little flat-water craft through ocean waves.  After this afternoon's exercise, we were ready for a mellow happy hour, where we said goodbye to our friends Julie and Don, who were to take their RV to Homer the next day.  We also spent some time thinking about the adventure we had planned for Sunday - a guided exploration of the backcountry of the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.