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Sea Kayak - Squaxin Island Circumnavigation

A fun and beautiful trip around Squaxin on a beautiful early spring day.

Will Greenough Will Greenough
March 06, 2025
  • Road suitable for all vehicles
    • An hour after 15.1' tide left little beach at the launch. Had to stack boats parallel with the water to the left of the ramp looking out.
    • Weather was fine - sunny and only a little wind.
    • Currents worked well - ebb provided good push to the north end of the island and then southward along the east shore of the island. It was not difficult to make good progress against the current by hugging the shore as we paddled north toward Belspeox Point and then on to Hope Island.
    • I've used the undeveloped shoreline on Harstine across from the south end of Squaxin for a break many times before. This was the first time that the land owner came down to check on us. Maybe because we landed further north along this stretch than I usually do. I'd recommend targeting the southern portion of this section for breaks and being very careful to be respectful of the beach in the future.

This was a fun trip with a great group and good weather. There was a little fog in the morning, but it was lifting as we launched a little after 10am. We rode the ebb current north along the island and stopped for a break on undeveloped beach along Harstine Island about 1/2 mile north of Squaxin. After break we paddled soutward with the 1-2kt current along the east side of Squaxin and at the south end, crossed again to Harstine Island to stop at another undeveloped beach for lunch in the sunshine.
As we were enjoying lunch, the landowner of the beach hike down from the north to check on us to make sure that we were not making a mess or leaving trash. Apparently this family owns this whole stretch of shoreline that is undeveloped along the soutwest shore of Harstine. He was satisfied that we were respecting the land and although he didn't give us permission, he didn't ask us to leave.
After lunch we crossed again to Squaxin and paddled close to shore against the current to Belspeox Point and then across to the day use area on Hope Island. During this last break we did some rescue practice for equivalency and a couple of paddlers practiced rolls.
After break we crossed to Carlyon Beach and then along Steamboat Island before crossing directly back to the launch. We arrived at the launch around 3:20pm.

Total distance: 10.8nm