Waterfront San Juan County Parks for Camping

San Juan County parks are pretty much ignored by the boating crowd, could it be that the lack of overnight floats keeps them away?

SJ County Park is an easy dinghy ride from anchor in Small Pox Bay.  This popular campground is great for  kayakers heading out to Haro Strait for Orca watching.

Shaw County Park Campground picnic shelter

     On Lopez Island is Odlin County Park, the only county park  with a dock.  You can load and unload but the sign says to limit your tie up to two hours.  Out in the bay are a handful of buoys and decent anchoring, but expect swells from passing traffic. This park would make an excellent rendezvous spot with friends arriving by ferry, or in twenty minutes you can ride your bike to Lopez Village for snacks or provisions.  Beachfront camping rounds out a really nice place.

     Shaw Island, boasts Shaw County Park in Indian Cove. (off Upright Channel across from Odlin county park) While offering a protected bay for anchoring, the beach is somewhat  flat making dinghy landing a chore and wet feet likely. The campground is cliff front in the trees requiring using a stairway to access from shore.  A wooden boat ramp gets your vehicle across the sand but leaves a lot to be desired at anything but high tide.

     San Juan Island County Park is located at Small Pox Bay on Haro Strait.  The road from Roche to Lime Kiln Park (Whale Watch Park) provides vehicle access.  The quite small rock free bay is easy to drive into from Haro Strait offering room to anchor one or two boats front and center in front of the ranger station. The beach is dinghy friendly and has a boat launch ramp provided your skiff is an easy launch and your car is four wheel drive.  This park is a favorite for orca watchers that crowd the point jutting from shore offering elevated unobstructed viewing equal to that at Lime Kiln Park.

 (FYI, you can make reservations up to 90 days in advance at all three San Juan county parks at https://secure.itinio.com/sanjuan/  or google San Juan County Parks) All the parks offer bike and hiker sections.

Odlin Park on Lopez island has a two hour dock limit -
find Odlin across from Indian Cove and  Canoe Island on Upright channel.

The house on right side marks the edge of public beach at Shaw Island County Park. Up in the trees are campsites, grassy fields, restrooms and a picnic shelter. This park is very hard to spot, none of the facilities are visible from the water.

North to Patos Island

Patos is as far north as you can get and still have some land to land on before entering Canada.(Okay, I know Point Roberts has some land, but we have no need for customs today)

        Patos is just north of Sucia, hardly two miles depending on where you measure, so you can run up there in just an hour or much less.  What you will have when you get there is two islands, Patos and Little Patos, together they create a pretty cool little anchorage. Run your boat all the way to the north end and enter alongside the lighthouse, have your camera ready, its a picturesque  place for sure.  There are no docks so puttster up to the dinghy beach and drop anchor in front of the picnic area. Back in the woods 75 yards or so is a nice campground along the trail to the lighthouse.

         Basically there are two trails to hike.  There is a one-miler or so that makes a circle in the woods and is sort of boring, so you have been warned. The other is a ten minute walk out to the lighthouse and most of it is akin to a road.  Be sure to visit the lighthouse, recently volunteers have been holding open house during peak summer months. Inside they have old photos, scrap books, artifacts and you can climb the light tower.  (it's hot up there if the sun is out)

         If you want to keep your walking to an absolute minimum on perfect concrete pathways, run your dinghy ashore next to an old concrete thing with a post sticking out of it.  It's left over from when the coast guard needed a landing spot. This concrete thing is well inside the protection of the anchorage bay, but its at least halfway or closer to the light house.  You will have to scramble up a rock or two, but right at the top begins a three foot wide concrete path that goes all the way to the light house. We choose this route if we are only headed for the lighthouse, its saves rowing and walking, and if we are anchored right in front, why not!

         A little warning about the tiny channel between Patos and Little Patos:
         Yes you can run your boat through there but, there may be a current and at low tide it gets a little thin. It's kinda creepy when you can see bottom on both sides of your boat. We take our boats through, but only dead slow into the current, never with the current.  If you are the least bit concerned, just go around, it's only one or three minutes and you get to take a picture of the lighthouse to boot.

          I recommend visiting Patos for lunch or spend the night, On our last trip to points further north we used Patos as a jumping off point and a return point, it was like coming home.

 This is the concrete thingy,  (you have to see it) the teensey dinghy beach and the trail is to the left between the rock and the post.  BTW, you could anchor here and stern tie to that post.  You can see the picnic area and main dinghy beach way, way beyond the anchored boats, so this saves some walking and rowing.

 This trail was built to US Coast Guard standards, it's probably a foot thick.

There is a lot of old foundation concrete out in the grassy areas on both sides, with a little sleuthing you can figure out where the buildings were, and imagine much of the original installation. Pictures and drawings inside the building show where everything was.

 Volunteers camp in the campground and maintain hours for visitors, you could spend several hours inside learning the history, its well on its way to being a museum.  Don't forget the Stuart Island lighthouse has a similar setup and they do call it a museum. 

Five Reasons for Taking the Boat Camping in the San Juan's

         I was all set to write a scathing article about the horrors of car camping and tropical cruises, thereby justifying why we go boat camping, but after giving it some time to rest, I admitted I like car camping and tropical cruises.  Some of you probably do too!  But why?  Change of pace and relaxation come to mind, in other words, getting away from it all, whatever "it" may be.

         So rather than list  potential horrible road trip issues lets concentrate on what a boat camping trip promises.

       For starters, the cynics of you (me too) have already thought "no promises."

         OK, enhanced expectations:  (satisfied?)

• relaxation  (doing nothing at all, nothing!) 
• change up in daily grind
• play with boat, meet and hang with other boat people
• be with friends and family
• do a little hiking-fishing-sailing-reading-writing

       We can make this list go on and on, but you get the gist.

      

       Relaxation, or being stress free to me is key to a successful vacation, and worrying about where we will spend the night (on a road trip) is a major stress factor.  You can say get a reservation, but there are many times, reservations are not in the cards, or severely limit what you do.

     

      There is one major difference between car camping and boat camping that is lost to non-boaters, and that is the freedom to come and go, anywhere, anytime, and never having to worry about a "sorry no vacancy sign."   When boat camping, there are no check in check out times, there are no camp hosts, no registration clerks. Docks at parks have some common sense rules, but are not reserved and first come gets it.  You will never, and I stress this, "EVER" be sent away.  Oh sure it may be crowded somewhere from time to time, but there will always be room to anchor. (the dinghy rides just get a little longer) When boat camping, unlike a road trip,  you never need to stress-out over getting a place to stay, just go, you will have a spot when you arrive, and you can count on it.  However if you (not me) must ruin things, you can stress-out over arriving in the dark, or other dumb self-inflicted pain, but that's another discussion.

So the answer is

 We go boat camping to relax and get away from  it all!

Orca Watching in the San Juan Islands

       One of the reasons we go to the San Juan's is to see the Killer Whales, except more often than not we are in the wrong spot and only get to see snooty seals.  Probably the same ones we see every year.

       Fear not! You can get in plenty of trouble interfering with any marine mammal you choose.  So even if you miss out on the orca sighting of a lifetime, you still have a chance at getting a big fine levied on you for messing with their smaller cousins.

     With just a little online research, I came up with these rules. Keep in mind that new regulations and changes to existing laws happen all the time, and my interpretation is likely flawed.

      You know of course that you are not allowed to bring your boat closer than 200 yards (that's about the length of two football fields end to end)  of a southern resident whale. Which begs the question, how does one know if it's a resident, let alone from the south? What I knew once, but forgot, was that you are required to put your transmission in neutral if you find your self inside the 200 yd limit.

     You are not allowed to position your boat, (and this includes kayaks, rafts, dinghy's, etc.) so that you intersect with a whale coming towards you.  The rule is 400 yards  ( that's about a quarter mile )

      So if I understand  correctly, when whale watching, you can hang around as long as you're two football fields away, but if they come at you because you cleverly set it up by getting in their way,  you may get a $1,025 fine.  Plus you may unwittingly get yourself in trouble for not putting the motor in neutral when  they approach closer than 200 yards. So all you kayakers, lift your paddles I guess.

      This means you are not supposed to turn tail and run away when you get too close, but stay put in neutral until the Orca has swam outside the 200 yard radius.  This sounds silly at first, but I think the logic is that others may be nearby that you can't see, and your spinning prop is a danger to them.

Now for seals or any cute marine mammals:  It's not legal to feed, harass, handle, jeer, taunt, or make fun of them, and this includes lost or abandoned pups.  Fines may reach $11,000, jail time, and losing the boat. Ouch.

My last words of warning:   Enforcement or compliance is a subjective thing, this means you might disagree with the grounds for your citation.

    To be safe, keep back a fair distance, and don't feed the non-human animals that hang around your boat.

  Happy whale watching! 

and for gosh sakes, have some fun!

BTW.  We have seen large groups of Orcas in Rosario Strait  off of James Island, and in Haro Strait off of Lime Kiln, which tells me they circle the San Juan's.  

Is your boat legal in the San Juan's?

            The answer is yes - probably

The laws in Washington State are pretty much the same as where you are coming from.

If  your yacht is legal at home it's legal in the San Juan's, but only for 60 days.  After 60 days you will be expected to leave the state or become compliant.

So you get a free pass for two months, but if your monster has expired tags, (vessel or rig) or you do not have a valid boaters card, you may be subject to re-training and fines.

And that's the way it is!

Lets go boating.

Good News & Bad News - boat camping fees in Washington's San Juan Islands

     Who can resist a headline stating "Good News" or is it the bad part that draws us in?
No matter. The good news is that anchoring is still free, the other news is that Washington State Park fees for boaters have gone up.

      The reported new fee for using park buoys is $15 per night.  Staying at the float has been increased to 70 cents per foot.  So your 30' mega yacht is now $21 per night.

      On this subject, you may remember an old post where I pondered float etiquette -  Case #1 - a 30' boat hogs the middle of a 50' float leaving no room for other boats, should he pay for 50' or 30'?  Case #2 - the same 30' boat scoots way down and hangs over the end leaving room for more boats, should he be rewarded and only pay for the 20' he uses?  Case #3 - and we all no the answer to this one - do you include the bowsprit, swim step and dinghy davits or go with the much smaller boat length stated by the boat builder, come on be honest, no one is watching.

      Other thoughts on fees:  Park fees are a very small part of our overall boating experience, and yet provide us tremendous benefit. The Washington marine parks are top notch, why wouldn't you want to support them?