Last weekend Mark and I drove up the coast with our good friend Michael for the 11th annual South Sound Traditional Inuit Kayak Symposium (SSTIKS). We arrived Thursday evening, and spent some time catching up with old friends and making new ones before heading to town for some tasty barbecue at a local restaurant.

The event was a huge success, and participation was high. I was thrilled when 26 people woke up early to join me for yoga in the forest. Throughout the weekend I ran three morning yoga sessions, instructed three rolling classes and judged the rolling competition. Mark instructed Forward Paddling, Maneuvering Strokes and Core Strength.

Yoga in the forest.

Paddle making workshop.

Dubside’s evening presentation was insightful, and the auction was lots of fun. The silent and live auctions raise money for the following year’s event, enabling the SSTIKS crew to keep registration costs low, and sometimes unusual, but crowd pleasing items, are auctioned off. It was funny to see Mark’s voice auctioned off for someone’s answering machine in the live auction (which brought in $140).

Enthusiastic rollers.

Don demonstrates high angle hand position.

Other fun and engaging activities included a paddle making class, Greenland Rope Gymnastics and SSTIKS’s salmon barbecue dinner. It was a wonderful event, and we look forward to being there next year.

Salmon barbecue.

Greg relaxes between classes.

We ended our trip to Washington with a visit to the Space Needle.

After SSTIKS Mark and I hopped on a train to Seattle and spent a day exploring. We went on the Underground Tour, did some shopping and visited the Space Needle and Pike’s Place Market. Seattle is a wonderful city, and we had a ton of fun navigating it by foot. Now we’re on a plane on our way to Amsterdam and looking forward to a six week teaching tour of Europe, hosted by Tahe Marine.

Pictures by Helen and Mark.