Leaving Edmond on the 5:45 ferry

Coming into Kingston

The early-bird beats..... the traffic

NW Cup #4 marked the finals of the inaugural running of the NW Cup, 4 race,  Series (formerly combined with the Fluidride Cup).  Some new sections of the race course made for some new scenery and an oldie but goodie with a twist came into play with a set of jumps in the Pro/CatI course.

The layout of the courses made it a bit hard to get from on course to the other to cover the various class, but I think I did a good job. I hope that CatII and CatIII riders appreciate that I found a NEW spot to shoot their race runs. Someone was nice enough to point out that I seem to shoot those classes from the same spot race to race… to race (thanks for that).

Very good time.

Check out all my photos from the weekend here:

NWCUP#4 Photo Gallery (Saturday – Practice)

NWCUP#4 Photo Gallery (Sunday – Practice – Race)

#683 Travis Erickson from gohuckyourself.com haulin' ass down the beginning stretch of the "White Knuckle"

#520 Adam Ransavage on a new section of the Pro/CatI course.

Epic dust.. and a lot of sun... but I'm not going to complain much about TOO MUCH SUN. Rider: #652 Shane Wise.

BBBRRRAAAAAAPPPPP!!!!!!!

#424 Matt Patterson of Dirt Corps being too fast to stay in frame...

Men's Pro - Series Champion - #139 Kyle Thomas

Woman's Pro - Series Champion - #3 Jill Kitner

Mens CatI 0-18 (JrEX) Series Champion - #200 Brian Mullen

One more for the road.... a Pacific Northwest rarity.... epic light. Rider: #655 Nikolas Clarke.

My return trip was not quite as solitary.

45 minutes wait for the bridge, and a 2 hour wait for the ferry.... nice

priceless.... or whatever the ferry cost to come back across to Edmonds

I hit every race to shoot photos. Wide range of weather and the ever-evolving course layout made it very fun, but challenging to find the latest photo-worthy feature of each course.  I will have a review some of my favorite shots of the series and the story behind them in a later post. Stay tuned.

Check out all my photos from the weekend here:

NWCUP#4 Photo Gallery (Saturday – Practice)

NWCUP#4 Photo Gallery (Sunday – Practice – Race)

Race Results HERE

—G

With the weather this summer, it’s been a late start to “family fun boat time”. After a failed attempt last year to reach Sucia Island in the San Juans, we, or more correctly… I… made it a point of venturing to the island that eluded us last year.

Last summer, one of our very first outings, we decided, or shall I say I decided to go to Sucia Island. During the way up, we were boarded by the coast guard, got the speedometer clogged, and while tapping on the glass of the speedometer, found out the hard way that there was apparently a short in the dash console, because tapping on the glass promptly killed the motor off the shore of Clark Island. Eventually, the boat started and we made it back to Blakely Island for the night. The next day we returned to the boat launch at Twin Bridges, where the boat died again and we ended up bashing the rear of the boat on the gnarly metal log boom. So the following weeks, I got to learn about gel-coat repair, and boat wiring.

This trip, started out with similar luck. Rain water in the bilge made me question the presence of the plug, the GPS crapped out unable to acquire satellites, and the start of crabbing season littered our course with crab pot buoys. But, we ended up busting out the charts, checking the compass and Kyle did a great job taking watch for oncoming crab pot buoys.

For me, Sucia Island lived up to the hype. Got a place on the dock, time to hike around, ate some chicken, and met some nice people on the dock.  It’s a really nice place and we will be back…

All my photos were taken with my new Panasonic DMC-TS2. Water-proof, shock-proof, freeze-proof, I can put it in my pocket… and it can take a nice picture.

Sucia Island in the distance

Haulin' boat

Fossil Bay at sunrise

Trail overlooking south side of Sucia.

Fox Cove at Sunset

Beach at Fossil Bay

Kyle grubbing on some "ghetto sauce" chicken.

Check the my Smugmug Gallery for all of my pictures of our trip.

—G

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