Patti and I took mid-September days to do some paddling around Marrowstone Island.

On the way to Fort Flagler state park, we put in at Port Ludlow marina and paddled North to Mats Mats Bay. There are several islands along the way and it seems no matter how much space you give the harbor seals, they always jump in to check you out.

The forecast was for high fall gloom. As you can see, not entirely accurate.

Here’s the entrance to Mats Mats bay. Our crappy map indicated a place to land in the bay, but it was hard to find. We did find it, but it was low tide, with boot-sucking mud, so we had lunch on the water.

The second day, we put in at Port Hadlock, which has a nice little neighborhood boat launch. We had designs on paddling to Port Townsend, but the wind was stronger than forecast, which limited how far we wanted to flog our way back against the wind. So we got a free ride (with 1–2 foot wind waves rolling under us. Somewhere between “whee!” and “whoa!”) to an undeveloped state park South of Port Townsend, then began the uphill climb back to Port Hadlock, stopping for lunch (hot crab bisque!) at a road-end park just South of Chimacum Creek. After lunch, the wind was even higher and gustier than before. After getting back to Fort Flagler, to the vacation rental, the wind seemed to have died. We drove out to Flagler campground to check out potentially putting in there the next day. Flat. Calm. Of course.

The third day we put in at the Flagler campground with the option of crossing to Port Townsend or paddling in Kilisut Harbor, between Marrowstone and Indian islands, the latter island being a U.S. navy magazine, and off limits to boat landings. After a warm up paddle across the top of Marrowstone, we opted for Kilisut, and paddled around Bird Island at the head of the harbor, where it started to rain.

Rounding the island, once again we were surrounded by a dozen or so curious seals. We stopped for lunch in Mystery Bay as the weather steadily improved. Then we had a leisurely paddle back to the campground.

Time to stop at the Nordland store for some beers and drink them on the porch looking out over Admiralty Inlet.