For pure waterborne magic, Cypress Island is hard to beat

ANACORTES -- As a place to prop yourself against a driftwood log and contemplate the mountains and the sea, few places are better than Pelican Beach.

As a place to glide through fluttering forests of bull kelp and spot things such as porpoises rolling in tide rips and seals peering at you with liquid-moon eyes, you can't much beat Cypress Island.

Cypress is only an hour or two paddle from Anacortes, but light years away in terms of ambience. More than 4,700 of its 5,500 acres are protected state lands. No ferries go there. It's one of the last virtually undeveloped major islands in the San Juan archipelago.

As our crew of eight sea kayakers discovered during a recent three-day trip, Cypress Island is also one of the finest paddling destinations on Washington's extensive inland marine waters.

About 15 miles of trails, including one to the spectacular views from Eagle Cliff, lace the second-growth forests of the rugged island. Several tiny uninhabited islets nearby invite paddle explorations. There are three boat-in-only campgrounds on or around the island -- all gorgeous places to pull out and pitch a tent.

So there's plenty to do on and around Cypress, with a choice of places to paddle, camp and hike.

PAUL JOSEPH BROWN / P-I

Bromley Henningsen strokes her kayak through a forest of bull kelp off the northern tip of Cypress Island. A member of the Washington Water Trails Association, she helps teach paddlers leave-no-trace camping techniques.

"You think of paddling the San Juans and you think of San Juan or Orcas," says Chris Mitchell, a paddling instructor from Olympia who served as our smooth-mannered leader and campfire storyteller. "This is the closest island in the San Juans. You can get to it without having to take a ferry. The camping is great. There's nothing like this on San Juan or Orcas.

"If somebody wanted to paddle the San Juans and only had a weekend, Cypress is a home run."

However, for these very reasons Cypress is a popular destination, among paddlers and powerboaters, and on weekends especially you can expect company. But in our experience, it's good company.

"The people are the delightful part of it," says Bob Collins, a campground steward for the Department of Natural Resources whom we met at Pelican Beach. "I first kayaked here 20 years ago and fell in love with it, and now it's time to give something back. This is a place you tend to come back to."

However, paddling to Cypress is not a trip to take lightly. If you launch at Anacortes, you must cross open water busy with boat traffic. Currents can be dangerous at moderate or greater tidal exchanges. And, of course, the weather can throw wind, waves and whatever your way. A double kayak was hit and split by a powerboat off Cypress Head in fog some years ago, though both paddlers were rescued.

PAUL JOSEPH BROWN / P-I

With Pelican Beach as his classroom, paddling instructor Chris Mitchell, center, gives Tom Marks and Barbara French a lesson in proper paddle grip and stroke techniques.

We chose three days in August, when tides were soft, and were fortunate to paddle in fine weather on flat seas. We launched at the Guemes ferry landing after a short stretching and safety discussion led by Mitchell, who advised that we cross busy Guemes Channel all side-by-side, since it can be difficult for boat traffic to get around a group that is spread out.

Our crew proved as interesting as the locale. Mitchell is a certified paddling instructor and veteran of Vietnam who spent several years wandering the world. Paddling a double kayak was P-I photographer Paul Brown and his friend, Barbara French, a staffer at The Nature Conservancy. Also along were Tom Marks, a photo editor and friend of Brown's, my wife, Lorna, and two bright and idealistic young staffers of the Washington Water Trails Association. Bromley Henningsen and Kristen Kosidowski had spent the summer kayaking the inland marine waters on a WWTA project to help teach paddlers leave-no-trace camping techniques, and we invited them to join our party.

Our flotilla made it across the channel easily, then encountered a modest flood tide and larger-than-expected current and wake waves rounding Guemes Island's southwest corner. We worked our way north up the island's west shore before crossing Bellingham Channel, where in the distance we spotted our first harbor porpoises, shy little cetaceans that are abundant in the San Juans.

PAUL JOSEPH BROWN / P-I

Threatening skies greet kayakers as they set out in early morning from Pelican Beach on Cypress Island.

Reaching the island, we landed in a cove on the south side of Cypress Head, a rocky little knob topped with fir and madrone trees that serve as one of the three campgrounds. Cypress Head offers 10 nice campsites with picnic tables, most of them sheltered under trees. There are pit toilets, and the campground serves as a trailhead for the island's network of trails.

After a snack, we portaged the kayaks over a gravelly isthmus that connects the head to the island, and paddled north past a pair of murrelets diving for fish in the bay. As we slipped along the rocky shoreline and over purple and orange sea stars, schools of small herring darted through brown fronds of bull kelp, sometimes rippling the surface. To the east, Mount Baker poked its icy dome above a layer of clouds.

In an hour we paddled past a deer browsing along shore and pulled out on the gentle gravels of Pelican Beach, where several other parties had tents set up. Pelican Beach has seven shore-side campsites, two world-class composting toilets and a million-dollar view, to the east over Sinclair and Lummi islands to Baker.

In sunshine we pitched our tents, chatted with other kayakers -- including members of the family that operates Werner Paddles in Sultan -- and prepared dinner. Henningsen and Kosidowski went around the campground with their pitch about WWTA's SEA (Sound Education and Action) Kayaker Program and the leave-no-trace campaign.

PAUL JOSEPH BROWN / P-I

Crossing Bellingham Channel: from left, Kristen Kosidowski, Chris Mitchell, Bromley Henningsen and Tom Marks.

"Generally, paddlers tend to be real good about leave no trace," says Henningsen. "At the same time, I think everybody needs to be reminded because it's evolving. Techniques are being enhanced as we learn more about the environment. We've had a lot of positive feedback from people saying they're glad we're out here promoting leave no trace."

After dinner we took the trail to Eagle Cliff to watch the western horizon swallow the sun. It's only 1.3 miles to the top, with a gain of 750 feet. Most of the route passes through unspectacular second-growth Douglas fir. But as the trail gains elevation, the fir trees thin and become wind-twisted, madrones become more prevalent and the path negotiates rocky, grassy outcrops. On top grow low shore pines, very unusual for Western Washington.

But what you notice most is the expansive view to the west, out over Blakely, Orcas and the other San Juans, the Gulf Islands in British Columbia and the Olympic Mountains to the southwest. We sat up there and waited for the sunset, noting seals splashing in Rosario Strait below and a flock of gulls attacking a school of herring in a back eddy.

That evening we built a fire in the campsite pit, drank wine and told stories, Mitchell holding court with often comical tales of his world travels, loves lost, careers as a ski bum and as a musician in a bad rock band and, of course, his paddling adventures.

Next day we lolled on the beach in the sun like lazy seals until close to noon, when we set out on a day paddle to the three Cone Islands off Cypress' east shore. Here we saw more porpoises, a number of harbor seals with their big dreamy eyes, schools of herring and other marine life and birds, including eagles, herons, gulls, kingfishers and cormorants. The Cones are cute rocky knobs topped by madrone and conifers, surrounded by kelp and washed by the swirling currents of Bellingham Channel.

Back at Pelican Beach, DNR maintenance worker Sean Hewitt beached his workboat at the campground to check on things and stopped by to chat. He told us a little of the history of Cypress, which was logged many years ago and saw some mining activity for chromite and olivine. Today it is preserved as a natural area to protect its recovering forest, wetlands, pristine shorelines and the very uncommon "grassy-bald" ecosystem we saw atop Eagle Cliff.

"A lot of people go, 'Oh, this is a neat park,' but it's not a park," says Hewitt. "It's a conservation area. Our mandate is conservation, and we've worked real hard at it, but we allow low-impact recreation."

Visitors are asked to stay on trails to avoid trampling fragile vegetation, such as fescue grasses up on the balds, to camp only in designated sites at the three campgrounds, and pack out all litter -- in other words, leave no trace. Hewitt also asked us to point out that the Eagle Cliff Trail is closed Feb. 1 through July 15 to protect nesting birds of prey.

A couple of other friendly paddling groups set up camp during the evening, including an Everett Mountaineers party.

A big Grand Banks yacht tied up to one of the buoys, and its skipper -- Jeff Robinson -- turned out to be the affable owner of a chocolate factory in Blaine. Totally Chocolate custom designs fine chocolates, mostly for corporate customers. He popped into our campsite later with, appropriately, a box of tasty dark chocolate in the shape of a front page from The New York Times -- 3 or 4 pounds' worth. We shared it with just about everybody on the beach.

Next morning we rose early and broke camp, setting out to complete a circumnavigation of Cypress and return to Anacortes, 10.4 nautical miles total.

Before we set out, Mitchell gathered the group in a circle to grab onto a looped nylon strap while sitting down and standing up in unison, a team-building exercise he called "the circle of trust." Like a school of herring, he explained, safety is enhanced when a paddling group sticks together. By then we had all fairly well bonded, and the exercise entrenched the feeling, which was good since we had a distance to paddle, with a forecast of possible southwest winds to 15 knots and some current.

The north end of Cypress is an absolute sea forest of bull kelp, crowned by Towhead Island, and here we saw rhinoceros auklets diving for fish, and black oystercatchers with their distinctive red beaks and eyes. We paddled south along Cypress' west shore, into a misty rain and the end of the ebb current, surprisingly brisk at times.

After paddling under Eagle Cliff and around Tide Point, we spotted our first stop, Strawberry Island. Only a quarter-mile long, it also is a DNR campground -- a rocky, tree-topped islet with just three campsites. Strawberry, Pelican Beach and Cypress Head all serve as campsites for the Cascadia Marine Trail, the state's first water trail, which extends from Olympia north through the San Juans.

We pulled out for a break at the tiny rocky cove that serves as access to Strawberry, off which porpoises rolled playfully in a tide rip. Shortly, the Mountaineers party pulled in for a break behind us, also on its return trip to Anacortes. Leaving Strawberry, we paddled the short, open stretch back to the southeast side of Cypress, and around the corner to its south shore.

We beached to rest for our last crossing, which would be with a 1-knot-plus flood tide pushing us easterly. That meant we'd need to "ferry" the current, aiming our bows well west of our intended destination and thus spending more time on the busy open water of Guemes Channel.

But most of us by then felt the confidence of three days in kayaks.

"It's a special, magical freedom," Marks said as we paddled across. "It's fantastic, better than backpacking. You're right at the level of the marine life, like a fish."

The crossing proved tiring but uneventful. The wind never blew up, the water remained flat, boat traffic relatively light. We returned to the ferry landing, packed up and repaired to the Rockfish Grill for dinner, libations and a group hug.

* Kayaking to Cypress Island includes open-water crossings and currents and is not a trip for novice paddlers. If you lack the necessary skills, hire a qualified outfitter or guide. Be sure you're properly equipped and have thoroughly researched currents and forecasts.

* To find out more about the Cypress Island Natural Resources Conservation Area, you can download an excellent brochure and map from the Department of Natural Resources site at www.dnr.wa.gov/dataandmaps/maps/pdf/cypress_both6.pdf.

* Contact Chris Mitchell of Secondwind Sports (www.secondwindsports.net) at chris@secondwindsports.net.

* To find out more about the Washington Water Trails Association, see www.wwta.org Leave no trace

Principles for kayaking:

* Plan ahead and prepare

* Travel and camp on durable surfaces

* Dispose of waste properly

* Leave what you find

* Minimize campfire impact

* Respect wildlife

* Be considerate of others

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