At some point in my petroglyph research, I stumbled across a vague reference to a petroglyph on the beach between Cherry Point and Point Whitehorn, just south of Birch Bay. I had no description of the petroglyph and only an imprecise and possibly inaccurate sense of its location. With such scanty information, the odds of finding it seemed poor, but of course, if petroglyph-hunting were too easy, it wouldn’t be fun.

To improve my chances, I decided to paddle from Cherry Point north to Point Whitehorn, then walk back south along the beach toward Cherry Point, and then return back north along the beach to my kayak—giving me two chances to spot the petroglyph. If unsuccessful, I would paddle on to Birch Bay, camp overnight, and return to the beach the following day, which would give me two more chances.

In the event, however, weather forced me to abandon my kayak and most of my gear on the beach and flee overland on foot back to my car. I drove home to Seattle in defeat and hiked back the next day to retrieve my kayak from the beach.

The forecast called for a gale to hit at approximately one o’clock in the afternoon. To beat the wind, I launched from the public access point off Gulf Road an hour before dawn.

To the south, the Ferndale Oil Refinery and its associated marine terminal shone so brightly they were hard to look at. To the north, the Cherry Point Oil Refinery, sited a mile inland, was not visible from the water, but the lights of the Cherry Point oil terminal protruded even farther out to sea than the Ferndale terminal. The lights were not bright enough to determine whether it would be possible to paddle beneath the Cherry Point terminal, so I went the long way around out to sea.

The refineries, terminals, and tankers emitted a constant background hum, audible at a distance of well over a mile. The hum would occasionally rise to a roaring crescendo as some industrial process or other fired up or wound down. Clouds of vapor billowed into the sky, usually odorless but occasionally carrying a whiff of something unsavory.

I landed a mile or so south of Point Whitehorn and began my survey of the beach. Daytime low tides in December are not very low, but I picked the lowest daytime tide I could. Then began the hours-long process of poking up and down the beach, searching high and low for signs of a petroglyph.

Not knowing exactly what I was looking for or where, I had to inspect every rock. I even waded into the water a short distance to examine the seaward faces of particularly promising boulders. In the end, the only rock art I found was a piece of well-worn but obviously modern graffiti. If the graffiti persists long enough, perhaps it will someday confound a future generation of kayakers the same way ancient petroglyphs do today.

I arrived back at my kayak shortly after nine o’clock. Just as I was donning my drysuit to resume paddling, rain clouds blew in. In fewer than ten minutes, the windspeed climbed from ten knots to twenty-five—strong enough to roll my loaded kayak off the driftwood logs where I had balanced it. Two-foot wave trains began breaking on the beach. The formerly placid Strait of Georgia was covered in whitecaps and foam.

The afternoon gale had not been forecast to arrive for another four hours. I hunkered in my drysuit, hoping this was just a squall that would soon pass. An hour later, the windspeed had only increased. The meteorological station at Cherry Point a mile to my south measured sustained winds at thirty knots, with gusts to thirty-eight. The wind-waves in the strait had increased to three-foot rolling breakers with spindrift blowing off the tops during the strongest gusts.

The lee of Point Whitehorn would have afforded shelter against the southeasterly wind, but I was on a beach a mile short of the point. Paddling to the point would involve vicious, following seas the whole way. I decided not to risk it. I abandoned my kayak and most of my gear on the beach. I dragged everything as high as I could against the eighty-foot (24 m) bluff to protect it overnight from the rising tide and crashing waves.

One possibility was to hike back to my car along the beach, but I wasn’t sure I would be able to cross in front of the Cherry Point Oil Refinery, where I assumed the shoreline was private property and probably fenced. I was worried, too, about getting pinned against the bluff by the rising tide, which would rise much higher than usual with all these waves. Fortunately, there was a safer way. By sheer, dumb luck, I had happened to beach my kayak right next to the one and only publicly accessible stairway up the bluff. I packed my most expensive pieces of gear into a carrying bag and lugged them up the bluff and then another six miles (10 km) on foot back to my car at Gulf Road.

I had hoped some passerby might stop to offer me a lift, but I was soaking wet and dressed in a ratty old Army surplus rain jacket and carrying a large, weird-looking bag full of junk. I wouldn’t have stopped to pick me up, either.

As it turned out, the shortest route back to the car was by way of decommissioned old county roads crisscrossing the oil companies’ vast upland landholdings. There were no cars on any of these roads. In this weather, there were no people at all. There was only a steady, unearthly moan from the industrial equipment in the distance and not a soul anywhere in sight.

By the time I got back to my car, the wind had dropped to fifteen knots. Under these more favorable conditions, it was tempting to drive back to the Point Whitehorn Marine Reserve, hike through the forest and back down the bluff to my boat, and finish the paddle to Birch Bay. Just as I was leaning toward doing it, the steady rain turned to steady snow. I decided the boat would have to fend for itself tonight.

The next day, I drove back up from Seattle to retrieve my kayak from Point Whitehorn Marine Reserve. The kayak had survived the night, but it was still stranded on this most inconvenient beach. The closest vehicle parking would require a mile-long hike to reach the kayak followed by a mile-long hike back to the car carrying my sixty-five-pound (30 kg) kayak and the remainder of my gear—all of which I would also have to haul up the eighty-foot bluff.

Rather than suffer through all that, I parked my car a few miles farther away at Birch Bay, on the shoreline of a low, pebbled beach. Parking at Birch Bay meant a longer walk to reach my kayak, but I was then able to paddle back to Birch Bay and land my kayak just a few feet from my car, sparing me a burdensome carry.

I’m not sure why I was unable to find the petroglyph. The most obvious explanation, unfortunately, is that it may have been moved or destroyed, but I am more optimistic. With better data, I might have better luck. The next step is to return to the research library at the University of Washington, there to pore over old copies of the Midden. Hopefully, I can discover a more precise location of the petroglyph and maybe even a photograph or at least a description so that next time, I don’t have to spend quite so many hours staring at random rocks. I might also play it a little more conservatively with the weather forecast.

—Alex Sidles