Tag: Fossil Bay

Back to splendid Sucia for an August campout and a heron friend

A golden sunset lights up a sailboat moored on Sucia Island’s Fossil Bay.

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I’VE KEPT IT NO SECRET: Sucia Island is my favorite place in the San Juans, and probably on Earth. Washington State Parks calls it the crown jewel of its marine park system, and one of the top boating destinations in the world. Forgive the 1960s advertising earworm, but a second summer visit to Sucia is like Doublemint gum: double the pleasure, double the fun.

My daughter, Lillian, and her partner, Lux, just headed home to Seattle after a three-night visit with me, including an overnight campout on Sucia. I slept aboard WeLike at the state-park dock at Fossil Bay while they pitched my good old REI dome tent at the island’s best campsite, atop a rocky knoll dotted with madrona trees and gnarled Douglas firs.

A Great Blue Heron kept us company during this year’s pilgrimage to Barbara’s bench.

The weather was sunny and temperate. After setting up camp our first outing was a hike through shady cedars to my late wife Barbara’s memorial bench adjacent to Shallow Bay. We enjoyed a sack lunch and took in the glorious panoramic view that included several of the neighboring San Juans, a handful of Canada’s Gulf Islands and a wide expanse of glittering saltwater. Lillian and I make an annual pilgrimage to the bench to commune with her mum’s spirit. Many of you Reef readers donated to help place the bench there. Thank you.

During last year’s visit, a lone harbor seal came on to the shore rocks immediately below the bench and watched us with soulful brown eyes the entire time we sat there. Barbara’s spirit animal? This year it was a great blue heron that stayed on the rocks the whole hour we were there.

Like the rest of the state, the San Juans have a burn ban but we were still able to cook on our two-burner propane campstove. That evening, after we played a couple hands of a favorite card game, Lillian concocted a tasty pasta with penne, chickpeas, sundried tomatoes, artichoke hearts, capers, lemon zest and tender fresh kale from my Center Island deck-rail planter.

Lux, left, and Lillian on Barbara’s bench near Shallow Bay.

I realized during this visit that I’d never paid proper attention to the sign at the head of the Fossil Bay dock. It explained that two dozen of the region’s yacht clubs and boating associations, united as the Puget Sound Interclub Association, were largely responsible for the island’s existence as a park. While Washington State Parks in 1952 had acquired 115 acres of today’s 564-acre Sucia Island Marine State Park, the boat clubs rallied in the late 1950s to stop a plan for private vacation-cabin development of the remainder of the island. Raising $25,000 (a whopping sum in that day), they purchased and donated most of the rest of the island for the state park. Again, I say thank you.

Today, the island remains pristine, with numerous scenic hiking trails, 60 campsites, two docks, 48 mooring buoys in six bays and coves…and a special park bench with a lovely view.

Happy August, dear readers.

Just messing about in boats is hard to beat

Lopezian friends David Foutch and Lynn Thompson with WeLike at Fossil Bay on Sucia Island.

MY LOPEZ ISLAND FRIENDS Lynn and David recently posed one of those “can’t hardly say no” questions:

“Would you take us in your boat to see Sucia Island if we pay for the gas and bring a picnic?”

Does a kid say no to chocolate cake with ice cream and Cool Whip?

For years my friends had heard me speak glowingly of Sucia, my favorite island of the San Juan Archipelago. My family and I had taken our sailboat there every summer for about 20 years running. Lynn and David, who live most of the year in Seattle but spend plenty of time at a lovely getaway home near Iceberg Point on Lopez, had never been to Sucia, a popular marine state park that is humanly populated full-time only by a ranger or two (along with herons, eagles, kingfishers, otters, seals and other wild creatures). It is in the far-flung northeastern-most part of our island chain.

WeLike was built by Skagit Boat Co. of La Conner in 1957.

Lynn, now retired, was a colleague and chum of mine at The Seattle Times. Her husband, David, is a semi-retired Boeing engineer who still works for the Lazy B three days a week, even when they spend weeks on Lopez. He is part of a group studying how to make air travel carbon-neutral, a worthy goal if ever there was one.

Honestly, I’d have jumped at the chance to show them Sucia even without the promise of gas money. But David is still collecting a regular paycheck, so I didn’t feel too guilty. Besides, when we pulled up to the Blakely Island fuel dock on a pristine morning last Wednesday, I pumped in only 5-1/2 gallons rather than fill my voluminous tanks. That was an act of mercy; the ethanol-free gas my Evinrude 90 prefers was selling for $7.52 a gallon. Ouch.

David and Lynn wanted to walk up the dock to the Blakely Island Store, which I had never visited on previous stops for fuel. It was a pleasant diversion, with fresh-baked doughnuts, at a beautiful spot with waterfront views of Orcas and Obstruction islands. An old-school attraction outside the store: a telephone booth with an actual functioning pay phone, among the last in the islands.

By 11 a.m. we arrived at Sucia’s Fossil Bay, with hopes of finding space at one of the two docks. A challenge this day: At 12:30 Sucia would experience one of its lowest ebb tides of the year, at minus 3.1 feet. That meant that even 20-foot WeLike, which needs less than two feet of water to stay afloat, might be sitting on the bottom at near-shore parts of the docks.

But as we entered the bay a big motoryacht was exiting. A correspondingly large space was open at one of the docks, well away from shore. We nabbed 20 feet of moorage.

We chatted with other friendly boaters (“Let the Fun BE GIN” quipped one skipper’s T-shirt) while the vintage WeLike collected her share of admiring comments from passersby old enough to remember 1957 Chevys of a similar color and design.

We then enjoyed a couple hours of hiking on the island, with a picnic stop at the memorial bench dedicated to my late wife, Barbara. The bench, financed by a GoFundMe effort Lynn had donated to, commands one of Sucia’s best viewpoints. From a shoreside bluff it takes in a splendid panorama of Patos, Waldron and Orcas islands in the San Juans and looks across Boundary Passage to Saturna and Pender in Canada’s Gulf Islands. Kayakers paddled by just beneath us and a bald eagle zoomed just above our heads as we munched tasty cold chicken grilled by David, apple-berry cole slaw that I contributed, and Lynn’s delectable chocolate espresso cookie bars. Tim’s-brand potato chips from the Blakely store ensured our salt levels didn’t plunge.

Your loyal correspondent at Barbara’s bench on Sucia Island. Lynn Thompson photo.

As we departed around 2, the tide was flooding in like kids to a schoolroom at recess’s end. Light winds made for a relatively easy passage back to the public dock at Lopez where I dropped Lynn and David.

A successful day trip on a good old boat. Hard to wish for better.