My fiancée Rachel and I paddled from Alki Point in West Seattle over to Blake Island, a state park about three and a half miles across Puget Sound from the city.
The entire island is a park, with the only construction a small Indian concession on the east end where one of the local tribes hosts a commercial dinner-and-dancing-type affair during the tourist season. The rest of the island is heavily wooded, with miles of trails to explore.
We paddled across Saturday morning, spent the night, and paddled back to Seattle Sunday afternoon.
Route map. There are several other possible launch points along the West Seattle shore.
We camped in the Cascadia Marine Trail campsite on the northwest point of the island. Going all the way to the northwest point added about a mile to our paddling distance, but it was worth it for the solitude.
The marine trail campsites are reserved for paddlers only—no powerboats. Powerboaters are limited to other sites nearby along the northwest beach, the east field near the concession, or in a couple of sites on the south end. (Subsequently closed.) Paddlers may camp in the powerboater spots, too, if they don’t mind staring at and listening to moored boats all evening.
While Rachel and I were on the island, no one else was in the marine trail sites. One other kayak-couple was camped in the south end site, and one power boater was camped on the northwest beach.
We didn’t visit the big campground near the east side concession, but my guess is it was similarly uncrowded. It was great having such a big island mostly to ourselves, especially in the evening. There were about two dozen visitors during the day from powerboats and sailboats, but most of them seem to have spent the night in their cabins rather than on the island.
Rachel launches onto Puget Sound. In the background, the Olympic Mountains and a small flock of brant.
Kayaking past Alki Point lighthouse, est. 1913. Alki Point sticks so far out to sea it dominates vistas of central Puget Sound for many miles to the north and south.
My favorite part of the trip was the shorebirds. The marine trail site was fronted by a large mudflat at low tide, and hundreds of dunlin and sanderlings flocked to this flat to forage.
From time to time, the flock would burst into the air and whip to and fro, hundreds of birds strong, all flashing their brown and white colors in rippling waves. Sometimes the flock would come skimming low over the sandy portion of the beach where Rachel and I were sitting reading, and we would hear the whoosh of their wings as they shot past, just feet over our heads.
There was also a handful of black-bellied plover and killdeer. I had found killdeer eggs on the beach on Blake Island during a previous visit, and it looked like the killdeer were planning to nest there again this year.
All told, we saw 41 species of bird, the coolest being a pair of red crossbills I startled up from the trail while walking through the woods early Sunday morning. We also saw seven species of mammal: eastern gray squirrel (in Seattle), river otter, California sea lion, harbor seal, mule deer, Townsend’s chipmunk, and an ungodly number of raccoons.
Most of the raccoons were foraging on the beaches at low tide. It was good to see these animals behaving naturally rather than scavenging off humans like they too often do. Of the dozen or more raccoons we saw, only two came by our campsite after sunset, at least that we knew of. Their visit did not avail them. We had bear barrels for our food, and State Parks supplied big steel lockboxes in the campsites, as well.
Rachel pointed out to me three species of fern, which was something I’d been trying to learn more about: sword ferns, including many of enormous size, deer ferns, and, growing on the trunks of the huge old bigleaf maples, licorice ferns.
The island was almost all second growth, but it still presented a very pretty forest.
Dunlin, sanderlings, and Seattle’s Space Needle from Blake Island. With all the urbanization in Puget Sound, it’s amazing we still see as many shorebirds as we do.
Cascadia Marine Trail campsite on Blake Island. In the background, a container ship brings in piles and piles of consumer goods from overseas.
We spent most the trip doing camp things more than kayak things. I read Dog of the South by Charles Portis. Rachel read a Flamenco guitarist’s memoir. We harvested old red alder cones for Rachel to use in making dyes. We made pots and pots of various kinds of tea. It was a very relaxing trip.
Morning on the beach, Blake Island. We used a Folbot Yukon and a Folbot Kodiak.
Departing Blake Island, Mount Rainier in background. Mount Rainier is a highlight of any trip on Puget Sound.
Rachel said one of the best things about Blake Island is its proximity to Seattle. We can go kayak camping any time we like in this town, and we can visit natural areas without the need for long drives or multi-day ordeals.
Whenever we want a quiet beach to sit on and read and listen to the waves, Blake Island is there for us. Indeed, years later, we brought our daughter there, and years after that, our son.
—Alex Sidles