It was a gorgeous day for the ferry trip yesterday (12/30) through the San
Juan Archipeligo, Anacortes to Sydney, BC, and back. Seas were mostly calm
and the air reasonably warm and pleasant. Eleven of us total, including the
'Tweetster' contingent, Rob Conway, Marvin Cooper, Ann VanDenburgh, and
myself, joining Jim Duemmel and the CBC group mostly from Bellingham. And,
this was the first time I've actually ever been on the same boat and sailed
with Terry Wahl, ...a conquest conquered!

I don't know the final species list or total numbers. Nothing unusal and
unexpected and generally numbers for ducks and alcids were quite low,
surprisingly so according to the veterans. Small alcids were hard to come by
with most of those little guys not being seen at all until the trip back when
Maybe 25 Marbled and only 2 Ancients were seen. None-the-less, it was a great
time shared by all and the scenic splendor of the route renders the birds
along the way in a way, secondary. The largest concentrations of anything was
along the last little bit over near the Sydney, where there was a nice
sprinkling of a few dozen Oldsquaw and rafts of Pigeon Guillemots.

Richard Rowlett (Pagodroma at aol.com)
47.56N, 122.13W
(Seattle/Bellevue, WA USA)