Kayak Stories

Five days on the Hood Canal
9-4-05
In the deepening twilight Clint and I paddled as fast as our exhausted hands could carry us past the long row of million dollar mansions, casting nervous glances back at the sinking sun. When I saw a short stretch of beach without a house, and then picnic tables, I paddled closer, thinking maybe it was a park where we could camp.
     A carefully coiffured silver haired woman walked her elegant poodle along the shore and waved. I waved back and asked her if this was a public park. She said no, it was private. When I told her we were looking for a campground, she became confused, as if never having considered that someone might travel along the heavily developed shoreline in a boat, looking for a place to throw out a sleeping bag...I mean, Lewis and Clark is soooo last century!
     She was kind enough to tell us that the shoreline became less developed after the next point and that we might have some luck there. On rounding the point we saw a long stretch of undeveloped beach, and stared in wonder at a shoreline with no houses. Sadly, we saw the dreaded yellow signposts and beached our kayaks to read the bad news. "No: camping, picnicking, campfires, collecting plants, shellfish, driftwood, littering or hunting. Privately owned, managed by the Nature Conservancy."
    I saw a couple walking down the beach and asked them if the No Camping rules were enforced. They hesitated at first and I could tell they were sizing us up. When I told them we were a father and son team on vacation, and had started four days ago, and 70 miles away at the start of the Hood Canal, they warmed up and admitted that the beach wasn't patrolled, and as long as we kept a low profile (no fires, gone by early morning) we probably wouldn't be hassled.
     Despite these reassurances, Clint wasn't comfortable with breaking the law and we paddled on. We passed a man made harbor in a weird ultra expensive development (Coon Bay) built on what must have been an old sand spit. There was about half a mile of curving shoreline protected by a 20 foot seawall of huge black boulders. The houses were packed in shoulder to shoulder and the seawall curved around into a small protected bay where there were small yachts moored in the blue water.
    As we paddled by the mouth, admiring the lovely manicured lawns running down to the shore, Clint commented that it would be cool to paddle into the little harbor. I replied, with some envy, that I didn't think you could enter the harbor unless your income was over $130,000 and instead of 'No Wake', the sign ought to read: "No poor people allowed".
     Half a mile further up the shore we saw more undeveloped beach and paddled closer in the gloaming. This turned out to be a lovely place called "Foulweather Bluff" and was a long sand spit protecting some quiet marshlands. Half a dozen fishermen plied their lines in the water as we beached our boats and climbed up to read the signs. This time they just read, "Private Tidelands, no shellfish harvesting", but nothing about trespassing or camping.
     Clint thought we should keep going, but I saw a fisherman hiking up the beach toward us.

"Let's ask this guy if we can camp here Clint."

"No dad, don't ask him, that'll just be one more person who knows what we are doing."

"Clint look, it's getting dark, we're out of options and it's quitting time. These guys don't care what we do, they're just interested in the fish," I replied.

"Good Evening!"

"Hey, how's it going? Nice kayaks you have there!"

"Say, we're wondering if anyone ever camps here. We've come a long ways and are looking for a place to sleep."

"Dude, I see people camping here all the time, it's public access, be careful with fires though, the grass is dry. How far have you come?"

"We put in at Belfair, back at the start of the Hood Canal, 4 days ago, I guess that would be about 70 miles."

"No kidding! That's a long ways." He paused after he said that, sizing us up. "Are you guys on some kind of a mission or something?"

"No, no, nothing like that. We're just on vacation. I'm a teacher and this is my summer break. My son is in college, and this is his break too. We have two weeks and we're going as far as we can."

"Wow! That's awesome. What a cool trip: father and son...well, I'm off to do some fishing, have a great time!"

We hauled our boats up the beach and began setting up camp in the gathering darkness. Half an hour later, as I blew up my Thermarest sleeping pad inside my bivouac sack I heard a shout from the beach. There was my fisherman friend holding up a 20 inch salmon.

"Holy smokes!" I cried, "that's awesome." I dropped my bivy sack and ran down the beach to look at his fish. It was a beautiful salmon, fresh from the sound, and he held it up proudly to the light from my headlamp.

"What did you use to catch it?"

"Oh, it was just one of those 'Buzz Bombs'.

"What's a Buzz Bomb? I used to fish when I was a kid, but I've forgotten how all that stuff works."

"Here it is", he said, opening his pack and pulling out a small white and green lure about the size of a peapod.

"What's a fishing license cost?

"About twenty bucks. I made my money back in two trips. What's salmon cost a pound now: seven, eight bucks? I caught a nine pounder yesterday, and now this one today."

"You want some of this...do you guys have a fry pan?"

"Oh yeah, we have a fry pan. We were planning on cooking rice."

"Oh jeez, fresh salmon and rice, that would be perfect after a long day of paddling," he said, pulling out a long knife and laying the fish in the sand.

"Are you sure you want to give that away? I don't mean to take away your food."

"It's no problem, I come out here to relax. I don't even need this fish, I still have a nine pounder in my refrigerator, and I live just up the hill. How much do you want?" he asked, laying his knife at the half way point. "This tail section is actually my favorite part, but you can have it."

He severed the fish with a quick movement of his razor sharp knife and handed me the tail section, about 10 inches long by 5 inches tall. I thanked him again, shook his hand and he walked off into the darkness along the spit toward the mainland. As I walked up the beach toward Clint, I saw he had been watching the whole thing. I held up the fish for him to see.

"See Clint, if you open up a little and talk to people, you learn things and you might even get stuff."

This is a day by day breakdown of our trip up the Hood Canal:

Day One, Tuesday: 12 miles; 2 PM to 8 PM. We launched from Belfair State Park (good water access, but a couple miles from the true start of the Hood Canal) and paddled to the southern elbow of Hood canal where we found a small grassy area just beyond the high tide line at the mouth of the Tahuya river. In a winter storm at extreme high water it'd be submerged, but at least it wasn't festooned with no trespassing signs and no houses were in sight. Clint cooked half a package of "Little Smokies" for dinner and I heated up the first of what was to be many cans of chili.

Day Two, Wednesday: 17 miles; 11 AM to 7 PM. Tahuya river to about 9 miles south of Seabeck (Holly). Because of our late start, by the time we rounded Musqueti Point and got our first look up the main stretch of the Hood Canal, the afternoon winds had begun and the water changed from glassy calm to a brisk chop and a head wind. A couple hours later at the half mile crossing at Dewatto Bay we were paddling against a 15 knot headwind and white caps on 2 foot swells. It was the biggest water either of us had ever been on and I looked at the crossing nervously.

"Should we stay close to shore?" I asked my son, the more experienced paddler.

"No, it would take much longer, let's go straight across." he replied.

"Stay close, I might need your help in a hurry if I get knocked over."

"You'll be fine dad, just remember to brace with your paddle if a big one hits you."

     I was just beginning to learn what a brace was. It appeared to mean that you paddled normally and waited for a large wave force you off balance. If you felt the boat going over, paddle harder on that side to force it upright. it was something I'd begun doing instinctively, as long as my arms didn't blow out. Inevitably exhaustion took it's toll and I was surprised to find that I could simply give up and rest, letting the boat find it's own natural stability. Because it was so loaded down, it rode low in the water and was quite stable as long as I didn't fight it. It simply rode the waves as a log would, gently bobbing up and down and side to side.
      It got scary when I was paddling forward at speed and the bow would ride up a white capped crest, launch out into air and crash down into the trough of the next wave, burying it's nose 6 inches deep in the dark green side of the wave. The first couple of times this happened I worried that it wouldn't recover, but it rose out of the water every time, streaming buckets of cold green water and plowed doggedly forward. "Oh lord," I thought, remembering the old seaman's prayer, "my boat is so small, and the sea is so large, keep my boat safe in these troubled waters."
     As evening approached the wind and chop died down to more manageable levels and we began scanning the shoreline for a camp spot. Even on this relatively roadless East side of the canal we'd begun noticing a disturbing trend: wherever there was a bank low enough for us to haul up our boats to level dry ground, there was a luxury home and No Trespassing signs. We got close to shore and began looking closely at the high bank, hoping to spot a small shelf where we could camp above the high tide line.
    In a long stretch uninhabited high bank beach, I saw a strange sight: thirty feet above the water, poking out between a couple small fir trees was the square edge of a flat sheet of plywood...apparently a small platform jutting out from the steeply wooded bank. I beached my boat and scrambled up the 8 foot overhanging bank where I saw a welcome sight. It was an old fisherman's camp with room for two tents. They'd brought shovels and carved out one good tent spot, then built up a driftwood "foundation" on which they'd laid the sheet of plywood I'd seen from offshore. Over in the corner of the 15 foot shelf was a very old, slowly rotting wooden packing case, the kind with brass reinforced corners. Clint had climbed up by then and we opened the creaky old lid with reverence, hoping for long lost treasures.
     It was very dirty inside the case due to the hole in the lid, still, we found a full set of stainless steel silverware, half a dozen old enameled coffee cups and a rotting sack of charcoal briquettes Behind the case we saw a small cast iron stove of a very strange design. It was shaped like a 5 gallon can of white gas, but had fold out legs on top and bottom, probably for the pot and the ground, and had a vent hole at the top that would never move again.
      The whole camp spot had the look of a long abandoned and forgotten fishing camp. After our long day of paddling it felt like the Ritz and we moved in, sweeping off the 40 years of leaves and branches to make flat sleeping spots. Because Clint felt uneasy about leaving his kayaks at the high tide line, we emptied them out, then hauled them up the 8 foot bank and stashed them in the woods by the platform.
      We had chili for dinner and built a small protected fire down on the sand in the shelter of a huge old stump where no one could see us. In the cool of evening the north wind had died completely and we ate our dinner looking out on a golden sunset over miles of glassy calm water with the stunning Olympics and the lights of Lillywaup in the distance.

Day Three, Thursday: 20 miles; 9 AM to 8 PM. Holly to Bangor. We'd realized by then that we needed to get up early and paddle before the afternoon winds kicked up. It took us about ninety minutes to go from waking up to launching. There is a surprising amount of work to do in the morning while sea kayaking. Because we didn't like to leave the boats at the high tide line, we carry'd them up by our camps. This can be as little as 60 feet, or as much as 300 yards (Tahuya river). The boats are too heavy to carry more than a few feet fully loaded so we'd empty them out, carrying the dry bags to the campsite before we moved the boats up.
In the mornings we had to reverse this process. Strike the camp, load the dry bags, carry the boats down to the water, carry the dry bags down to the boats and pack the boats at the waters edge. All this moving boats and gear takes time, and there never seemed to be enough room for all our gear. What were we thinking when we brought the 12 inch fry pan?!! Still, we were giving our legs a workout.
By five PM on Thursday we were beginning to run low on water and were paddling close to shore, hoping to spot a friendly homeowner who would offer to fill our water bottles. As I paddled along past luxury home after luxury home I spotted some people picnicking on woodsy stretch with an unusual looking sea wall. There was no house, but the sea wall had concrete steps coming down with hand rails. It was unusual enough that I paddled in for a closer look. There were picnic tables too. We'd seen this before but it had turned out to be a private park. I asked one of the beach strollers if they knew where we could get drinking water.

"There's a faucet right up the hill," she said.

"You don't mind if we use it?"

"No, go right ahead, it's a public park."

"Awesome, what's it's name?"

"Scenic Beach State Park, and there's camping off to the left up that hill. Where'd you guys come from?"

"We started at the beginning of the Hood Canal at Belfair three days ago."

"Wow! That's a long way, where at you headed?"

"We have two weeks, we'll go as far as we can, maybe to the San Juan's."

   After watering up we headed around Misery point and paddled South though choppy waves and a stiff current to the little town of Seabeck where we were able to buy a few things at a general store next to a marina. This turned out to be the only resupply store on the trip. If we'd stayed on the West side there are more towns (Hoodsport, Lillywaup, Potlatch) but it seemed an unnecessary crossing, and much more populated with Highway 101 running along the shore.. I picked up a disposable camera (never again) because my 1979 Pentax had finally died (always test a camera before a trip!). We also bought two apples, 4 bananas, a pound of hamburger, batteries for our headlamps, Advil for aching muscles and a couple lighters for the stove.
   Speaking of cameras, I should have just brought my good digital: a Canon G5. I had bought a waterproof Pelican case big enough for my old film SLR (no batteries required), but it turned out that I simply didn't do that much photography and my two batteries for the G5 would have been plenty.
       We paddled out of Seabeck into the main channel again and pondered the crossing to the other side. Though it was just over two miles across, there was a light but steady wind causing a rough one foot chop, and it was 6:30 PM. We needed to get over to the West shore. The next day we would be passing the sub base on the East shore where we couldn't put in for rest breaks. The East shore was all luxury houses for as far as we could see, but the West shore (South end of Toandos Peninsula) looked pretty wild. We decided to go for it but stopped to put on our wetsuits as we weren't certain of the weather and darkness was only 2 hours away.
    The crossing itself was actually fairly routine, just your usual 2 mile crossing in 1 foot chop and wind with the occasional large scary swell. I pestered Clint a little, asking him to stay close for reassurance. I lean on his expertise a lot. He's been paddling regularly for a year and a half, whereas I only had (before the trip) a dozen hours in kayaks.
   When we reached the far side the sun was down and we raced northward along the deserted shore, hoping against hope to find low bank without a house. Finally I noticed a gully coming down to the water that did not appear to have a house. I beached my boat and found a small creek with a rough steep trail heading up the gully. People had camped here before, but probably not white men as there were no beer cans or fire ring, just a lot of oyster shells and some relatively flat spots in the forest by the creek.
   We chose to sleep right above the high tide line in order to avoid the arduous boat carrying ordeal. Clint ate protein bars for dinner and turned down my offer to share another can of chili. As we ate, we watched the light in the nearest luxury home a quarter mile north up the beach. We worried about them spotting our headlamps and coming down to kick us out, but the place turned out to be deserted as the same light was on the next morning. We came to the conclusion that at least half of these million dollar homes that line every available inch of low bank shoreline are simply unused vacation cabins for the super rich. Another toy to be bought and ignored.

Day Four, Friday: 21 miles; 10 AM to 8:30 PM. Bangor to Foulweather Bluff. We got off to a late start the following morning, once again eating energy bars for breakfast. Packing the boats had become a tiresome but unavoidable chore. Clint didn't want to stop for lunch since we'd got such a late start, but by 1:30 I was dragging and pulled in at the next sandy beach. He got interested, real interested as soon as he smelled the hamburger cooking and we both enjoyed chowing down on some real food. We were back on the water in just over an hour and I felt much better.
     As we came up alongside the sub base at Bangor I was amazed at how big it was. I'd seen pictures of the sub hangar there, and I'd read that it had been designed to withstand a near-direct hit from a hydrogen bomb, but seeing it up close made me realize once again just how serious the "cold war" used to be. It's basically a huge concrete bread box big enough to hold a Trident submarine.
   The hangar was empty as we passed, but half an hour later Clint spotted a submarine coming down the channel escorted by 2 medium sized Coast Guard patrol boats and a tug. All three boats were dwarfed by the long menacing black sub. I'm sure glad these guys are on our side. Because the sub was moving along so slowly, and we were across the channel, it took 15 minutes for the wake to hit us but what a wake it was! The swells looked like ocean breakers rolling slowly toward us across the wide channel. It was a gentle ride and a couple splashes for me, but Clint caught a breaking wave over his head and got a soaking.
    Once we'd passed the Bangor restricted area we crossed back over to the East shore in calm waters and paddled North past an increasingly urbanized shoreline. I was surprised when Clint first spotted the Hood Canal bridge. I'd had no idea we had come that far already. At about a mile from the bridge the luxury houses were packed in like sardines and we paddled close, marveling at all the opulence.
    Hearing a shout, I saw an old white haired geezer running down his driveway/boat launch toward us, waving his arm. I heard him say something about a "Coho" and realized he was a Pygmy fan. I turned in toward shore where I could hear him better. He said he'd built a Pygmy Osprey, and asked if ours were Pygmy Coho's (they are). I realized this might be a good chance to stretch my legs and beached my boat at his feet.
    It turned out that he had indeed recently built a Pygmy, and was interested in talking to another owner. I told him we'd built ours over a winter in the evenings but he said his had taken him much longer because he'd been diagnosed with "lung disease". We had an animated conversation about the trials of building a wooden boat with no previous experience. He had an easy manner, and a great smile, and judging by the glamorous beach front home behind him was well set up in life...except for the lung disease.
    He gave us some good advice on our upcoming crossing to Whidbey Island (wait for slack tide and zero wind) and wished us well on our journey, giving me a warm handshake.
    We came up on the Hood Canal bridge quickly and stopped for a quick break below someone's house before going under. On the far side the bay opened wide in three directions and I asked Clint which way we were headed. He had the $20 waterproof map case, I had the $40 deck mounted compass. Clint's map was a waterproof marine chart, but we found it relatively useless as it didn't show campgrounds or roads. He'd had the foresight to bring along a Washington state atlas and we found it much more useful.
    He pointed his paddle at a far point. I looked nervously across at our biggest crossing yet, almost 4 miles at the end of a long day. Still, it was stable weather and we pointed our bows north toward Coon Bay, camping that night at Foulweather Bluff (see opening story above).

Day Five, Saturday: 6 miles; 7 AM to 9:30 AM. Foulweather Bluff to Point No Point Lighthouse. The dawn fishermen woke us up early as they walked up the sand spit past our camp. We were packed and on the water by seven and arrived at the Point No Point Lighthouse in a few hours. We'd planned on making the crossing to Whidbey Island, then up the coast to the San Juan's for our second week, but Clint had decided he'd had enough.
He doesn't have the extensive experience I have in backpacking and mountaineering. While I've become accustomed to roughing it over the years, I could also relate to his desire to "get a good nights sleep in my own bed". Besides, the blisters on my hands were getting ugly, and he'd said he might want to go rock climbing in the desert...I never turn down a climbing trip.
We called Sue for a pickup on the cell phone and soon found ourselves on the freeway in a Labor Day traffic jam, far removed from the endless calm blue waters of Puget Sound.

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