Sea Kayak - Central Hood Canal

Trip Report

SIGHTED: OTTER, SEA LION, SEAL, PORPOISE, EAGLE, GREAT BLUE HERON, BUFFLEHEAD, MERGANSER, CORMORANTS, BALD EAGLE, KINGFISHER, LOON

 

Everybody was on time at the Seabeck Boat Launch 10360 Misery Point R NW just outside Seabeck.  There is one unisex bathroom at the top of the parking lot that has absolutely no light in it once the door is shut.  That may be just as well as it is pretty skanky.  Lots of toilet paper though. There was plenty of parking although we were reminded (thanks Linda!) to be sure to move our cars away from the day use parking next to the water and to display our current Discover Passes.

 

As we readied our boats and selves we could see the sun reflecting brightly off the lower parts of the Olympic across the water  underneath the low lying marine layer that produced an interesting effect.  Unfortunately the layer dropped lower enveloping us in fog for much of the day with varying degrees of visability. 

 

After a brief huddle during which we were briefly interrupted by some passing members of another kayaking club  we launched just after 0900.  We began heading north and almost immediately stopped to see two land otters either fighting or playing on the shore. They seemed completely oblivious to us for about a minute so we were snapping away with our cameras before they parted ways. 

We continued on past Misery Point and headed over to the shoreline outside the cove of Seabeck. Too many snags to be able to go under the bridges into Little or Big Beef Harbors.    Eventually we came to Lone Rock rising up out of the rising tide just past Warrenville.

We saw plenty of seals, sea lions and porpoises along the way with some of the seals and sea lions coming quite close.

We hauled out for a bio break just south of the floating marker #11.  By this time the fog had dropped to the water level with only occasional slight lifting so we basically headed into a void, not for the first time, to make our mile crossing west to Hazel Point.  Clever Will had clocked the trip the night before but I had to rely on my quick and dirty chart reckoning.  Happily we both came up with a heading of 270 and even better it took us past a pod of porpoise close by.  It took about 20 minutes or so to make the crossing in the quiet water. 

We could hear an occasional boat or machinery noise but as usual in the fog you can’t tell from where or how close.  But the advantage in the fog is that there are usually few boats and I think we only saw one all day.

 

At that point it was just handrailing along the Toandos Peninsula shoreline on our right.  About halfway along to our destination at Tskusko Point you come to Fisherman Cove.  Nobody was too inclined to go very far into it.  It is a very shallow cove and there was an exposed spit on the left side of the entrance in spite of our reaching it near the top of the max flood.

 

On around the marker at Oak Head and we soon found a suitable place to haul out for lunch.  It turned out to be a pretty stellar beach in spite of the lack of scenery.  We found that there were quite a number of interesting rocks at our feet with lots of agates.  I brought a tiny one home for my collection.  We shared stories and an apple pie I’d brought.

 

After about 45 minutes we took off, soon reaching Tskusko Point where we then followed a 260 heading the two plus miles over to the Dosewallips River and adjacent park.  But we had to get through a pretty solid fog bank that had us almost on top of the river mouth before we could see much in the expected half hour to get over there. 

To get up the narrow river mouth you have to bear left and then go up the finger that is closest to the shore below some buildings one of which is a restaurant that had a pretty full parking lot. The mouth was pretty crowded too with lots of seals and at least one sea lion in and out of the water.  We stayed wide to try to not disturb them but they tend to be pretty curious, following us about.  We crowded into the back area of the park just in front of the stack of slag where a few of us pulled out on the grassy Knowles to stretch our legs and take advantage of the rest room. 

 

After about 10 minutes or less it was back in the boats.  By this time it was getting close to 1500 so we decided to skip going to Skavis Bay and return to the launch point.  We followed the shoreline again south to the point on the southern side of the Pleasant Harbor opening.  We still couldn’t see the other side and the problem was we didn’t know exactly where our launch point was south of Misery Point.  So we went a prudent 85-90 degrees for our two mile crossing  which would put us south of our destination. 

The shoreline became visible by the time we were within about a half mile of it and eventually we turned north and followed the shore past the numerous houses.  The boat launch is in between the last of those houses and another house rising up off the beach a bit.  We landing at 1558 and the water was happily higher than when we left it. 

 

The darkness was falling fast and the rain getting more aggressive as we packed up and changed.  A brief post huddle had no complaints other than the weather although we all agreed that it was a good exercise in fog navigation. What we lacked in scenery was more than made up for in wildlife sightings!  All paddlers performed well with good followership and excellent group dynamics.

 

 

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