Watmough Bay Park / Preserve

What is Watmough Bay like for anchoring, hiking, and visiting by boat?

  Watmough Bay on Lopez Island is a secluded, well-protected anchorage with a mostly rock-free bottom and several mooring buoys. Boaters can anchor in shallow or deep water and dinghy ashore to a gravel beach, where short trails lead to viewpoints and a restroom with vehicle access. With no camping and limited walk-in access, the bay becomes quiet once day visitors leave.

     This secluded gem of an anchorage is at the far southeast end of Lopez Island. No, not at popular Iceberg Point or Agate Beach.

Watmough Bay Park is on the southeastern end of Lopez  facing Rosario Strait. The cute little bay is mostly rock-free, and well protected.  You may hook on to one of several buoys or anchor in two fathoms a short dinghy ride from shore. 

Mostly visited by vehicle and bicycle travelers the gravel beach is popular with paddle boarders and swimmers. The park boasts standard upgraded outhouse restrooms a quarter-mile walk up a level trail where the ten-car parking lot is located. Two easy hiking trails complete this worthwhile destination, there are no onshore campsites so you will have the place to yourself when the day-use people head for home.

Not exactly sure, but in the far far background   (8 miles) is about where Deception Pass is.

     Tips for Visiting:

  Bicycle-Boating Rendezvous: 

Although there is no dock, Watmough Bay can be an excellent drop-off or pick-up point for a combined bicycle and boating tour of Lopez Island.

Timing: Point Colville and Davidson Rock buoy

Large swells can be encountered offshore near where the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Rosario Strait intersect. To avoid rough waters, it’s best to time your visit for near slack water on a low wind day.

Fog Considerations: 

Fog is a common occurrence and can linger for days, so be prepared for reduced visibility.

Rewarding Visit:

 Despite the challenges, a visit to Watmough Bay is highly rewarding for those who make the effort to reach this beautiful and secluded spot.

Click below to see a satellite view of Watmough Bay

Wind Versus Current and Predicting Conditions in the San Juan's

How do you know when and where there are big waves in the San Juan Islands?      

Fortunately, we don't have much bad weather or rough water during the summer, but things kick up a little when the wind blows against the current, or currents collide with each other.

           The current changes direction every six hours, so with a steady wind, conditions on the water may change from smooth to stacked waves and back to smooth, making crossing straits or rounding the tip of points very uncomfortable.  Some of the currents slam into each other, making things worse at the lee side of some islands.

           When the weatherman says a "north wind" he means the wind is coming from the north and blowing south.  Not confusing ! - but when when they say a "north current" they mean the current is flowing north - (opposites attract waves) Simple to understand?

 
Take a moment and click on this link to view current Rosario Strait conditions as forecast  by Noaa

click here to see Rosario Strait forecast  (this is the same handy dandy link on left side of page) The forecast predicts weather and waves and has a handy radar view, plus you can change the target area simply by clicking on the map.

           So! - a north wind and a north current are not good if they are at the same time and place, ditto for south wind and south current, east against east, west against west.  

When making plans, check the current and wind direction, remembering at slack water there may be no waves, and then as the current speeds up, the waves stack up.  And then six hours or less later, when the current reaches slack again, the waves go back down.

            In the San Juan's, currents flow around islands and land points, and winds blow willy nilly around land masses.  This means you may find localized rough conditions where waves are stacking due to north versus north, south versus south etc.  The good news is that many times these rough spots can be avoided simply by giving extra clearance when rounding points.  The straits and passes though may require you to time your passage to avoid opposing forces.  (north versus north, south versus south.)

          The southeast tip of Lopez Island at Point Colville and Davidson Rock is a good example where conditions often are atrocious and should be avoided.

 
          Remember, you can always turn around or wait an hour or two if you are overwhelmed.  Simply changing course a little may ease the ride.  Don't let your schedule or itinerary dictate your decisions.

If your boat doesn't look like this one, you should probably be somewhere else.
This winter picture was taken from the safety of the seawall at Depoe Bay, Oregon - not the San Juans.
We watched them practice maneuvers for an hour, sometimes rolling nearly sixty degrees. Seat belts, anyone?

Deception Pass Whirlpools in your Nightmares, Standing Waves and Currents

    Should you navigate Deception Pass in a dinghy?    

Don't do it without careful precautions and being fully aware.  

 I have avoided posting potentially scary pics.  I don't want people with vivid imaginations to have runaway thoughts and fears.   But recently, I spent half an hour in Deception Pass playing with the currents, letting them spin the boat while we watched whirlpools develop and subside all around us.

      We would run up a few hundred feet and then drift back, letting the boat spin and wander.

       As you know, when the tide changes, so do the pass and the water conditions.  The changes happen in minutes and even seconds, so be forewarned that you can easily get into trouble here in any number of ways.  I'm not going to argue or defend the safety point or even seamanship. Thirty minutes earlier, the water was so nice you could safely paddle a canoe. Thirty minutes later, well, that's another story too.

        My photography skills are lacking and water pics seem to always come out flat-looking so I will describe the picture below.  What you see is a swirling rotation about thirty feet across. Placid, calm water on one side of the swift flowing current is slowing the flow and throwing off one whirlpool after another. The whirls are both big and little and move with the current for about a hundred feet from creation to disappearance.  At this particular spot, there are 3-5 visible at any one time eliciting ewes and awes from us as we yell and point out, especially big ones to each other.  The inner whirl in this pic is funnel-shaped, about 10 feet across and very pronounced, dropping about 12-18" in the center.  The white center is taking in air and continues down under water just like a land-borne tornado funnel.  The wispy white air bubble tail is clearly visible below the surface for quite a distance.

With the motor quietly idling and the boat drifting we not only watch hundreds of whirlpools form and die but we can hear sucking sounds the particularly big ones emit.  

Of course, the conversation always touches on how a swimmer would be affected, with or without a PFD.  Next comes the kayak and dinghy what-ifs. On this day, a standing wave began to form while we dallied about.

Some standing waves look a lot like a whirlpool on its side, only without the funnel.  You can see the water well up from deep down, roll over at the surface, and then dive back down.  When the action gets severe, a nasty roller just sits there in one spot. If a small boat (kayak) gets sideways in any wave, it's liable to be rolled over, but in a fast-flowing pass, it is best to be somewhere else.

This standing wave was developing unnoticed by us and was still mostly flat.

 As we drifted sideways over the beginning stages, our keel got hooked, and we violently lurched to one side, heeling enough to slide the coffee cups on the table, and snapping my attention back to the fact that we really were in the middle of Deception Pass and should be serious.

Having enough fun and games, and acutely aware that the tourists watching from the bridge were by now probably making bets on our ultimate demise, I pushed her into forward gear, gunned the diesel and made a broad swinging pass back through the standing wave spot, and then for good measure, turned and ran right down whirlpool alley straddling or bisecting every whirly in sight.  An hour later or with storm conditions, the pass may not be navigable, but on that transit, all that happened was a little wake-up action.

Another perfect July day at Deception Pass