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Sea Kayak - Burrows & Allan Islands

The original plan was to go around Burrows and Allan islands but the forecasted wind and wave conditions there would have been too sporty. I looked for some less energetic areas and settled on Chuckanut Bay which turned out perfectly. Congratulations to Isaiah from this year’s Basic Sea Kayaking course on completing all his student paddles to qualify for his Mountaineers SK badge!

Doug Palm Doug Palm
September 10, 2025
  • Road suitable for all vehicles

  • Calmer winds and seas made the switch to Chuckanut and easy choice for a Plan B paddle

Scenes from the paddle, with captions:

Join The Mountaineers to explore, learn about, and conserve the land and water of the Pacific Northwest. A nonprofit outdoor community led by volunteers.Conditions for the day were relatively calm as predicted by the ECMWF model. Aka the “European model” it was closer to the actual conditions we encountered today. In comparison, NOAA’s GFS model predicted somewhat higher winds and waves but still acceptable for a student paddle.

Join The Mountaineers to explore, learn about, and conserve the land and water of the Pacific Northwest. A nonprofit outdoor community led by volunteers.Gearing up for launch at Wildcat Cove…

Cathie rounds the north end of Chuckanut Island after a brief exploration of the northwest shore.

Michelle spy’s one of the “fossils” imbedded in the eastern wall of the cove at the south end of Clark’s Point. Some say the concretions remind them of vertebrae. Others see the trunks of palm trees.

Join The Mountaineers to explore, learn about, and conserve the land and water of the Pacific Northwest. A nonprofit outdoor community led by volunteers.

Join The Mountaineers to explore, learn about, and conserve the land and water of the Pacific Northwest. A nonprofit outdoor community led by volunteers.Self rescue practice: Isaiah keeps his weight on his paddle/float outrigger so it can do its job keeping him stable as he climbs back into his boat. No “yellow rainbow” today!Join The Mountaineers to explore, learn about, and conserve the land and water of the Pacific Northwest. A nonprofit outdoor community led by volunteers.

Join The Mountaineers to explore, learn about, and conserve the land and water of the Pacific Northwest. A nonprofit outdoor community led by volunteers.Michelle performs an assisted rescue with Isaiah as the swimmer.

Join The Mountaineers to explore, learn about, and conserve the land and water of the Pacific Northwest. A nonprofit outdoor community led by volunteers.The orange lines show the original plan, with headings for a counterclockwise paddle around the bay to take advantage of the mid-afternoon low tide. After rounding Governors Point I decided to revert to my usual clockwise route to take advantage of the fine weather conditions. And because it looked like the tide would be low enough before noon to allow landing on Chuckanut Island. It turned out to be a good decision because the winds from the southwest picked up a bit in the afternoon. With the long fetch from Padilla Bay we encountered some 1 foot waves along the west side of Governor’s Point on the way back to Wildcat Cove. The dotted blue line is the actual clockwise track we made, recorded using a Garmin 64s and the resulting GPX file imported into Deepzoom. The timing worked out perfectly. We started on the dot at 10am and ended on the dot at 2pm. After that we did the rescues practice portion then got the last of the boats back to the cars by 3pm as originally planned. Made the map and plan using DeepZoom with the NOAA chart layer on. Added a compass rose from StarPath’s Compass Rose Creator: https://starpath.com/ENC/compass_rose.htm. To make the rose transparent I asked ChatGPT to do that and it did the job perfectly. Dropped it all into a page layout program (Apple Pages) to produce this final image.