I accidentally took my son, Leon, age four, for a one-on-one camping trip to Hope Island in south Puget Sound.
It was the weekend after Labor Day. Crowds seemed likely. To avoid them, I reserved the lone campsite at Carlson Bay on Anderson Island in south Puget Sound. As holders of the only reservation to the only campsite, we would be guaranteed solitude on Anderon Island once the daytime visitors cleared out. But I spaced out during the drive and accidentally took us to Boston Harbor, which is not the launch point for Anderson Island.
I didn’t notice the error until we were already on the water, paddling north. Having been to Anderson Island at least half a dozen times, I don’t use a GPS to paddle there. I don’t even check a map. I just paddle straight to the campsite at Carlson Bay. Today, having inattentively launched at the wrong beach altogether, I was mysteriously having trouble spotting it.
“Where the heck is Carlson Bay?” I wondered, squinting at Squaxin Island in the mistaken impression that it was Anderson Island. “I ought to be able to see the campsite from here.”
Not wishing to overshoot the campsite, I dug out the GPS. Only then did I realize we were ten miles (16 km) from Anderson Island, too far to paddle with an impatient four-year-old in the front seat of the boat. Still, the scenery here outside Boston Harbor felt just as familiar, because here was another of my favorite south Puget Sound destinations: Hope Island.
“Change of plans, Leon,” I announced. “We’re going to Hope Island instead.”
Route map. It certainly would be possible to visit Anderson Island from Boston Harbor if the currents were flowing in the right direction.
Leon remembered Hope Island as the “raccoon island” from our trip last year and Anderson Island as the “yellowjacket island” from our trip the year before that. Leon considered raccoons to be less daunting opponents than yellowjackets, so he was delighted by the change.
The change from Anderson Island to Hope Island revived my concern about crowds. I’ve seen Hope Island so full that kayakers had to share campsites. Unlike Anderson Island, reservations are not available on Hope Island. You show up and take your chances.
Fortunately for us, visitor numbers were much lower this year. We had our pick of the campsites when we arrived. Fewer than half the campsites ended up occupied over the weekend.
Raccoon numbers were also much lower this year. Last year, the raccoons on Hope Island swarmed us in overwhelming numbers. This year, we saw only two the entire weekend. One crept into our camp Saturday afternoon. Leon and I grabbed paddle halves and attacked. The raccoon retreated into the bushes and, amazingly, was not seen again the rest of the weekend.
Leon on Boston Harbor boat ramp. This is one of the easiest launches in south Puget Sound.
Leon riding kayak up Squaxin Passage. The air was so hot and humid, still and smoky that I took off my life preserver to avoid stifling during the paddle.
Leon on beach, Hope Island. We found plenty of clamshells but no crabs, at least not any live ones.
Leon opening food cache, Hope Island. Leon insisted that he always be the one to open the box.
Leon donned my hat and boots to create a villainous character he named “Big Leon,” complete with roaring voice, stomping footsteps, and third-person self-references. I offered Big Leon a camp chair so he could change back into his own shoes, but he replied that “Big Leon only smashes chairs,” which he then proceeded to do.
Leon walking past farmhouse, Hope Island. The caretaker at the farmhouse spent hours each day clearing brush in the forest.
Leon scratching in clay, Hope Island. Part of the beach was made of clay soft enough that a barnacle-covered rock could be used to draw in it.
Leon was keen to revisit “the big grassy field,” the old pioneer orchard at the southwestern corner of the island. The apples had just ripened this second week of September, but they had not yet begun to fall from the trees. To help the harvest along, a couple of powerboaters were moving from tree to tree, pulling down bunches of apples with a special picking pole.
The apples hit the ground with a sharp, distinctive plop. The local deer had learned to recognize the sound. Out from the forest came two does with two fawns. They approached the apple-pickers and began eating as many fallen apples as they could. The deer were so persistent the pickers had to guard their sacks of apples carefully, lest the deer reach in and steal the harvest.
Leon remembered these deer from our previous visit to Hope Island. Last year, Leon had been too small to participate in feeding them. This year, he raced about, chucking apples at the deer as hard as he could, demanding I pick more whenever he exhausted the supply of apples on the ground.
At first, the deer were startled by Leon’s movements, but they soon recognized Leon as their most steadfast ally on the island. The deer inched closer and closer, the better to compensate for the limited range of Leon’s throwing arm.
Fawn reaching for apple held by doe. The fawns struggled to bite into the roundness of a new-fallen apple and would often rely on their mothers to take the first bite for them.
Doe and fawn eating apple. The mothers generally tolerated the presence of the young deer, but I witnessed one incident in which a mother kicked at her own fawn who horned in too aggressively on mama’s apples.
Leon feeding apples to deer. By morning, every apple had disappeared from the lawn.
Douglas squirrel, Hope Island. Leon was able to recognize this as a female squirrel, thanks to the knowledge he’d gained from Mark Rober’s “Squirrel Obstacle Course” videos.
Sapsucker holes in bole of apple tree. Although sapsucker holes were everywhere, we did not see a single sapsucker or any other species of woodpecker.
Harbor seals and glaucous-winged gulls, Boston Harbor. The seals here were some of the largest and least-concerned specimens ever seen.
Departing Hope Island by kayak. Currents were mild enough that I made no effort to coordinate our movements with the tides.
As we shoved off the beach, Leon said, “That was fun.” He began calling goodbye to everything he had liked about Hope Island: “Goodbye, deer. Goodbye, beach. Goodbye, grassy field.”
“Goodbye, raccoons,” I joked.
“No, not the raccoons, Dada,” said Leon in a serious tone. His goodbyes were not indiscriminate reprises of things he had seen over the weekend. They were assurances he would return to see particular things again.
—Alex Sidles