Klepper Trip on Lopez Island, Fran and dbBrad.

Fran and I recently took a trip to Lopez Island in the San Juans.  Our intent had been to get some paddle time in some big water, primarily Haro strait between San Juan Island and Stuart Island.  As it turns out, we spend most of our time in the sun on a sandy beach eating fresh Dungenous crap, watching kids and hanging out.

Fran, the Easter Egg Queen, gets a new challenge.  Paint and an Entire Stump!

As it turns out, we missed a ferry leaving Anacortes and the next boat wasn't for over three hours.  So we drove back up the hill, found a nice forested parking lot with a view of the water and did some Klepper maintenance.

The Klepper pieces getting arranged for assembly.

The Klepper is a folding kayak made of impossibly fragile wood sticks, little aluminum connections like pop can tabs and a canvas skin sewn together with thread..

It seems impossibly fragile, but assemble the pieces inside the skin and blow up the sponsons and the skin stretches tight and the frame stiffens up and one thinks 'well, maybe this will work'!!

Fran and dbBrad out on the water sailing.

But put it in the water and load it and you've got an amazing ocean worth boat that paddles great, holds tons of gear, is the most comfortable of any small boat I've ever been in.

Morning coffee being delivered.

The real bonus is it has a complete sailing rig with lei boards, a 12' mast, main sail and a jib so you don't even have to paddle!!

Just the jib is up and I'm paddling lightly and were doing about 3-4 knots.

Such a good boat that Klepper has been making literally the same boat for about 75 years.  Such a great value that Military powers including Navy Seals use these boats.

Hauling gear up to camp after a long paddle.

We however, Fran and I, were just hanging out on and around Lopez island for the weekend, for some paddling, some sailing, and some fun on the beach.

Sailing a two person Klepper with one person.

Having lots of beach time was very nice.  It afforded us some nice conversation, big fires, good food and a chance to fuss with camping gear and boating stuff.  One thing I'd always wanted to try was sailing the Klepper solo.  So I rigged up a seat in the middle, moved the lei boards further back, rigged up a control board for the lines and took it for a little spin.  Very doable as a single, even paddling.

Bubbles over a crab shell.

SeaWeed and crab shell