A Night on Sand Island - Columbia River

I’d never combined kayaking and camping before. The thought of putting a bunch of camping stuff in my kayak seemed ridiculous to say the least. For those of you who know me you know I am all for trying anything new. So lets go for it! With a great group of friends we packed up our tents, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, pillows, food, water, wine and firewood. Firewood? I looked at my friends as they used bung cords to secure firewood onto all of our kayaks. I’m going to sink within a minute I thought… Good God – this is nuts, I could hardly carry my kayak down to the river. With much trepidation I got into my kayak and pushed off very much expecting to sink to the bottom… Although the water line was much higher on my kayak I was safely above water and my worry diminished as we all pushed off the shoreline and headed out of Scappoose Bay and onto to mighty Columbia River. We headed west and crossed the channel where the Willamette River and Columbia join a hard paddle across from St. Helens and we landed on our island for the night. Setting up camp was very typical and with 15 minutes we were sitting around plotting out our next adventure. We hiked all around the island and went for a night paddle. We picked up a gal along the way who paddled with us to the island and stay for and visited. She is a ocean biologist from Seattle. A stranger from the other side of the island joined us and we found out he was a professor at a local college and he paddles out to different islands each weekend to leave the hustle and bustle of life behind. I couldn’t imagine coming out to this quiet little island by myself as he does. One of the things that made this weekend get away fun was being with my great friends. It does amazing me the wonderful people I meet along the way on my little trips and adventures.