Clark Island a new favorite

As we explore our new local waters around Anacortes we are delighted to come across new favorite places. Cypress Island is quite magnificent, and I've chosen not to write much about it as it remains the wildest of the islands. This time we decided to explore yet another new place I had passed by with the boys on our Sucia a few weeks ago.

Clark Island beach on east side

I had never even heard of Clark Island, which lies just east of Orcas. It is clearly a local haunt for people from Bellingham or Lummi. We fought the ebb for a long way getting there on Saturday and enjoyed the lovely views along the way. The east side of Guemes is quite beautiful, and of course Vendovi and Lummi are rugged gems. Eventually, you end up at Clark Island. With neutral current it is about a 3 hour trip.

There is a bight on the east side that has mooring balls and a few places to anchor. We dropped anchor in about 40' of water and enjoyed a fantastic few days of exploring this great place. The beach on the east side was filled with people camping who had kayaked over from Lummi or in one case, rowed a giant skin frame canoe over as one large group. This group was young, with kids, and has been doing this trip for 14 years on this weekend, I'm told. The skin frame vessel fits 15 or so people, and is apparently quite stout.



This beach is gravel and sloped fairly steeply as all big wave beaches with gravel tend to be. My physical oceanographer wife fills us in on these things. The island is about a mile long and quite narrow. On the western side is another beach, but this one has fine sand! One of the nicer beaches you will find in the San Juans. We hiked all around, tide pooled and played frisbee.

Gaper Clam! 

We managed to dig up the largest clam any of us had ever retrieved from a beach. It was a giant Gaper Clam. Musth have been 2-3 pounds and bigger than my hand. We also saw a fair number of ochre stars, much to our delight. Maybe the wasting disease was 99% lethal and these few will repopulate with resistant varieties. Lots of young sea stars too. Chitons and sea cucumbers were also found.

You can walk the shoreline around the entire island at low tide. We walked the southern half on this trip and loved it. This might explain the lack of trails on the island. It is astonishing there is no trail along the spine of the island to the northern tip. Those familiar with Wallace Island up in BC will know it is similar, and a trail to the point would be an easy and wonderful addition to the islands charms.

Bald eagles were all around. Hummingbirds were also prevalent, and must have been dining on the honeysuckle that was blooming. I saw both Anna's and Rufous. Common Murre's were abundant, and a few cormorants. A kingfisher screamed his alarm overhead. A nice place for birds all in all.

We will go back to Clark in the future and enjoy more time. Both sides are exposed to the north, and not great in any kind of rough weather. But most of the time it is benign around here in the summer and you will be fine.

Lovely beach on west side of Clark