Last February at the Roanoke I was engaged in a conversation
with someone I met more than a half century ago. A
high school friend fondly recalled a canoe trip he took as a teenager around
Long Island. I had never heard of that Long Island. I had
only heard of the other Long Island. The
one with lots of people and that distinct accent. This Long Island was closer and far less
inhabited.
He had taken a weeklong trip around Long Island and clearly
the trip had been a good one. Ours would
be far less adventurous. The weekend
plans were in a state of flux until Thursday night when we decided to take an
inaugural overnighter in our newly acquired double kayak.
The kayak is an Osprey double, designed by John Lockwood,
Pygmy kayaks. It’s a design I’ve seen
for many years and the thought of building one often crossed my mind but those
ideas always crashed on the reef of reality.
There has never been enough time or space to dedicate to building a 20
foot kayak.
Fast forward to a couple of months ago. We’re not getting any younger and after Leigh
and I went down to the start of seventy48 (the human powered race from Tacoma
to Port Townsend), the impetus to get a double kayak ratcheted up. So I started looking at craigslist. And after about 6 weeks, I found it in
Portland, Oregon.
I corresponded with Kim, the builder and owner of the kayak
and it sounded like a good boat and the price was more than fair. Leigh had plans that weekend, so Friday night
we grabbed a dinner together in Renton before a weekend apart. Unbeknownst to me at the moment, Kim and his
wife, Fran, were also having dinner in Portland. By candlelight with their soon to be departed
Osprey Double Kayak. Beyond building
her, they had taken her to the San Juans, outside of Vancouver Island and had
paddled up in Haida Gwaii. They had
taken week long trips on her. Their
paddling days were nearing an end and they were having a ceremony to say
‘goodbye’ to the trusted vessel that had taken them to so many places. One of them, as I was to learn later, was
Long Island.
Leigh and I had never paddled a double before. In singles we’d taken overnight trips to the
Gulf Islands, the San Juans, and over to Blake Island, but the tandem kayak
would be new experience.
Long Island is near the coast tucked into Willapa Bay. Protected from the ocean, it’s a low lying
island surrounded by mudflats. Getting
onto the island without being a muddy mess requires some attention to the
tides. You can launch in anything higher
than a plus 2 at the refuge center but landings on the island are better at
plus 5 or higher.
Leigh was a little skeptical about the carrying capacity of
the double. While the stern storage
area was larger than on our singles, the bow area wasn’t that big. The ace in the hole, however, was a cavernous
region between the cockpits. While we
had struggled a little with putting the gear in our singles, this thing was a
snap. It’s a virtual station wagon. It holds a ton.
I recall our first experience loading a kayak. It took a while. Not this time. Beyond the carrying capacity of the kayak, we
had done this enough to know what to bring and how to stow it. That and getting one kayak ready to go is
faster than getting 2 ready to go. In
any case there wasn’t a whole lot of time between arriving at the Willapa Bay
Refuge center and launching the kayak.
We quickly adapted to paddling the double. The cockpits are spaced far enough apart that
you don’t have to paddle in cadence but doing so is easy, it feels faster and
candidly looks better. This kayak is
fast compared to a smaller single. Leigh
has been battling hand pain for a while and we were both worried about her
ability to paddle. It turned out
ok. When she wanted a reprieve, she’d
simply stop paddling and I could keep the boat going nicely. Not quite as fast, but certainly fast
enough. I sometimes rested and she could
certainly keep the boat going.
We both had some trepidation on exactly how the paddling
would go and after just a few minutes of paddling, those fears evaporated. Leveraging two paddlers in a double is, for
us, the way to go.
There were a few canoes headed out along with some small sit
on top kayaks. While clearly not a
racing kayak, the Osprey could outpace anything we saw on the water without an
engine.
There are 5 camping areas on Long Island, each with a
varying number of individual campsites.
We chose Pinnacle as it was the closest and we found a great private
site with a view.
Given the tides, we knew the afternoon would be the time to
paddle with the morning being the time to hike. After setting up camp, we took a much
lighter kayak for a spin to check out the other campsites.
Kayak camping is an elevated form of camping. We have a pretty good selection of
lightweight backpacking gear (for a recent 3 night, 4 day backpacking trip,
Leigh’s pack weight was 24 pounds without water). All of that fits nicely into a kayak. Add comfy chairs, a nice fold up table, and a
box of wine and you’ve got the recipe for a great experience.
Early on, Willapa bay was called Shoalwater bay and for good
reason. It’s shallow! To the point where much of the bay disappears
at low tide. In 1788, John Meares traded
with first nations peoples in Willapa bay.
Lewis and Clark stayed near there in 1805 when they first got to the
pacific coast.
Willapa bay is now the ‘oyster capital of the world’. One out of every 6 oysters consumed in the
US comes out of Willapa Bay.
Logging started on the island around 1880 and continued
until 1986, but within the island is a 119 acres of old growth Cedars. In the morning, with low tide offering a
about a quarter mile between the kayak and waters edge, we decided to go hiking
to find the old growth cedars.
Hiking on the island is easy and well-marked. The strand of old growth is impressive but doesn’t
translate well to pictures. Sobering to
think that just a few generations ago the entire Northwest was covered in old growth
trees. After thousands of years what we’ve
changed in relative short order boggles the mind.
After the hike we broke camp down and as the incoming tide
erased the quarter mile to the shore line, we shoved off and headed back to the
car.
Fun weekend and interesting island. Some day we’ll need to reprise John’s trip
around the entire island.
