SJ7 Cypress Island Circumnavigation
Date:March18, 2016
Launch Site: Guemes Island Young's County North Beach Park
Launch time: 8:00 am
Logistics' note: the first ferry from Anacortes to Guemes leaves at 6:30 am. It's approximately a 20 minute drive to the launch site.
Group consisted of 4 intermediated+ paddlers with many years of paddling experience.
We launch at 8:05 am on a beautiful 37degree morning under bright sunny skies from Young's Park on the north end of Guemes Island. Headed west then south paddling down Bellingham Channel towards the south end of Cypress Island. Stopped for a 10 minutes stretch/pee break at Reef Point. From there we continued up the west side of Cypress passing by Strawberry Island and making our way to a small pocket beach under Eagle Cliff, where we saw a bunch of eagles, surprise! After a 25 minute lunch break we continued on, passing under the always impressive Cypress Head and an area along the shoreline marked "nature preserve' and loads of keep out /private property signs, where we saw to donkey's ( a first for me) roaming the 'wild life preserve'.. Passing around the top of Cypress we passed thru the Cone Islands as we made our way back to Guesmes and our vehicles. We arrived back at Youngs park 1:35pm. GPS said we paddled 16 1/2 statute miles and at one point with the currents aid we hit 6.2 kph.