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Sea Kayak - Steilacoom to Point Defiance

A mostly nice winter day for this grand tour of the Narrows! Cloudy with a few sun breaks and showers and little wind until the last 2 miles home. Eagles, sea birds, seals and a few porpoises made an appearance. A pleasant lunch inside at 7 Seas Brewery (The Tides is closed still).

Will Greenough Will Greenough
February 19, 2026
  • Road suitable for all vehicles

  • Parking at the Steilacoom boat ramp is now $13.66, paid by smart phone.

    The tides were favorable in both directions, and the wind was relatively light ~5kt from the SSW until the last two miles into Steilacoom when it ramped up to 10-12kt, making for a bit of a slog back to the launch.

    Mostly dry all day, but showers seemed to know when we wanted to take breaks. Temperatures were cool - around 35 degrees at the launch and never really got too much above 40 degrees. 

    Screenshot 2026-02-19 104238.jpg

We got on the water on time and headed out to the Toliva Shoal buoy, rounding it with the building ebb current. We made good time to our first break at the north end of the beach at Titlow Park. From Titlow, we paddled through the east side of mid-span of the bridge and then paddled over to pass along Salmon Beach before crossing to Gig Harbor. We reached the dock at 7 Seas Brewery on time at noon and ordered lunch from the food truck there.

Service was a bit slow, but we were able to eat and get back on the water by 1:15pm to take advantage of the flood current.  The wind looked like it might be an issue, but never really got more than about 5kt, but combined with our paddling speed and the flooding current, it felt more like 10kt and the paddling was fun with waves to about 1'. Making good time we continued south closer to the west side of the Narrows and stopped for our last break at the public pier on Fox Island.

After break we headed straight toward Steilacoom, enjoying a short break from the wind that had started to build during break. However, about 2 miles out from Steilacoom, the wind did finally come up, and combined with a lack of favorable current in this area, caused us to slow down to around 2kt. We arrived back at the ramp at 4:20pm.

Total distance: 21.82nm
Average moving speed: 4.0kt (current assisted)