Sea Kayak - Tacoma Narrows

Trip Report

SIGHTED: SEAL, PORPOISE, EAGLE, MERGANSER, LOON, BUFFLEHEAD

All but one of the paddlers arrived on time but we were still 15 minutes late getting off the beach at 0945 (the handy Honey Bucket was gone) after a short huddle at Titlow Park. The tide was still high enough that it made it easy to dodge the pilings and we headed out in at time brilliant sunshine depending on which direction you looked.

 

We headed straight west into the quiet water until about three quarters of the way across the channel before turning a sharp right that placed us nicely about halfway along under the bridge.  It occurred to me that a lot of people may wonder what that looks like looking up from a sea kayak’s cockpit so I took a picture.

 

The late start costed us in the dying current.  We had missed the max ebb so only had about 2 knots left to start with that didn’t leave much to work with.

Water can’t tell time but as we travelled north we were getting less and less push and about a mile out from Gig Harbor we began to feel the tide was turning against us.   Fortunately we soon reached the area where the water splits and begins to head north to flood into Gig Harbor and we picked up our speed.  We were running late to meet my friends at The Tides Restaurant so I asked Terry to paddle on ahead as we approached the opening to the harbor. There was very little current as we approached the narrow opening and little or no boat traffic for once so very soon we were approaching the dock.  Terry  was already out of his boat and Ann and Greg waved at me from the dock when we arrived exactly at noon. 

 

We hauled out of our boats, some opting to get out of their drysuits there; I got out of mine on the warm mud porch of the restaurant.  There was no waiting for a table and we clustered around a couple tables squished together.  The service was a little slow but I knew already we were going to miss our max flood current at about 1330 but no real harm done.  I ordered a piece of belated birthday cake with a scoop of ice cream for me, Terry and Dave that was shared almost all around. 

 

It was 1400 by the time we suited back up and squeezed back into our boats.  I had to pause before leaving the harbor to adjust my back hatch cover and then we continued south to find some sun had come out and the wind had risen slightly from the north.  The sun came out in places and we were treated to a rainbow over Tacoma.

 

Once clear of Pt Defiance the wind got mostly blocked and things smoothed out more.  The rapidly dropping sun gave some dramatic contrasts as I hung back to take some pictures. 

 

We mostly stayed away from shore in what current there was before making a sharp left to head straight back into the beach at Titlow, arriving at 1600 with the tide happily higher than when we had left.  It didn’t leave a lot of wiggle room to land boats however so we had to line up a bit.  Good teamwork was applied to get our boats up to the grassy area above.  Some used wheels while others moved their cars to get loaded back up.  We had a brief post huddle in the soon to be set sun rays where the only comment was the wisdom of getting off the beach sooner rather than later when dealing with a current.  Thanks exchanged all around, nobody opted to come to my house for chili and we all went home.  All paddlers performed well with excellent group dynamics.  

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