Home of the Sequim Bay Paddle Guide
November 16, 2024 — We recently changed web hosts and need some time to rebuild the site. Thanks for your patience.
Sequim Bay Paddle Guide
Sequim Bay is located on Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula near the town of Sequim (pronounced ‘Skwim’). The bay is one of the most scenic locations in the Pacific Northwest with abundant wildlife and wonderfully rich human history on every shore. Travis Spit protects the bay from the wind waves and swells that occur in the Strait of Juan de Fuca making Sequim Bay a great place to start if you are a first time stand up paddleboarder or kayaker while also providing complex currents for more advanced paddlers and endless scenic opportunities for paddlers of all skill levels. Please use this guide to make your next paddle trip as safe, fun and educational as possible.
DIMENSIONS AND DEPTH
THE STATS
- The bay is about 4 miles long from Travis Spit to the southern end and between 3/4 mile to 2 miles wide depending on how you measure it.
- A paddle trip completely around the bay will be about 10-12 miles depending on the line you take and the tide height.
- The deepest spot in the bay is approximately 126 ft., just east of John Wayne Marina.
- Water temperatures in the Strait of Juan de Fuca range from 44 to 57 degrees fahrenheit.
See the nautical chart for water depths around the bay. All the depth measurements are in fathoms so multiply by 6 to convert to feet.
WHERE TO LAUNCH
JOHN WAYNE MARINA AND PARK
You can launch at the launch ramp inside John Wayne Marina for a fee or you can launch from the adjacent park for free. At the park you must walk down a moderately steep ramp to get to the water and there will be some rocks to navigate. It’s quite shallow and at low tide you will have a long walk to the water. But it is a perfect spot for beginners because it is well protected from wind, current and boat traffic. Good water shoes or at least flip-flops are highly recommended because the beach and launch area has a number of barnacle covered rocks and the area is littered with broken shellfish shells. There is plenty of parking and bathrooms available. We recommend parking your car or RV for the weekend and camping at John Wayne’s Waterfront Resort and dinner at Dockside Grill which are both a short walk away. Port of Port Angeles website
SEQUIM BAY STATE PARK
The dock fee only applies to watercraft needing to use the boat ramp to launch so SUPs and kayakers can park and launch for free. You do need a Discover Pass to park your car which can be bought on-site. The park is right on the Discovery Trail and offers camping and bathroom facilities. The launch area and seawall was completely rebuilt in 2019.
PORT WILLIAMS
One mile to the north, outside of the bay is Port Williams. Marlyn Nelson County Park at Port Williams provides bathrooms, benches and a boat ramp. You can paddle south through the entrance of the bay, past Washington Harbor and inside to enjoy the rest of the bay but watch the tides carefully because the current can be very strong (see Tides and Currents). You can also enjoy exploring the north side of Travis Spit with spectacular views of Protection Island and Mount Baker. See below for more history of Port Williams.
Clallam County’s Port Williams webpage
NOTE:
Travis Spit is owned by Battelle and private land owners. No trespassing signs are posted the entire length of the spit. The rest of the bay’s shoreline is also owned by private land owners so landing locations are very limited. Also, keep in mind that many tidelands and shorelines are still used for commercial shellfish operations and should not be used as informal bathrooms for paddlers. So plan ahead and if you need to tinkle, Sequim Bay State Park and John Wayne Marina both have well kept facilities available. 🙂
WEATHER / WEB CAMS
OVERVIEW
Due to the Olympic Mountain rainshadow effect, Sequim only sees an average of 16 inches of rain per year (compared to 36 inches in Seattle) and sees a significantly higher number of sunny days than the rest of Western Washington, earning the nickname “Sunny Sequim.” An article in the Seattle Times Magazine, January 22, 1961 said, “…it is the one spot on the Olympic Peninsula where one can stand under a clear sky and watch the rain falling all around a few miles away. Nobody complains about the weather in Sequim; it’s a place where the residents can enjoy Puget Sound living without rain hoods.”
For the most comprehensive explanation of Sequim’s unique weather see olympicrainshadow.com.
FORECASTS
Weather Underground
Windy.com – The best wind prediction around. If you study the maps through the year you’ll start to really understand the wind and weather patterns here.
CURRENT OBSERVATIONS AND WEBCAMS
John Wayne Marina – Current conditions and 3 webcams (scroll down page for webcams).
PNNL Environmental Monitoring – Weather, Currents, Water Quality
Olympicrainshadow.com weather station – Located 4 miles north of the bay.
New Dungeness Lighthouse – Current conditions and 2 webcams (scroll down page for webcams). Located 8 miles north of the bay.
PADDLER’S TIP: Although it is often sunny at Sequim Bay, there is almost always a light wind during summer days and the temperature generally averages a few degrees cooler than Seattle in the summer (70 degree average in July and August.) The wind is generally from the north and is blowing in cooler air off of the strait. If it’s blowing from the south there is probably a storm brewing somewhere nearby. The good news is that the wind is fairly consistent in the summer. It usually starts around 9:30 am and subsides around 7 pm. With glassy water and the unique quality of the light, I think mornings and evenings are without a doubt the best time to paddle on Sequim Bay during the summer. Other seasons can be less predictable and there are so many micro-climates in Western Washington you can’t really predict the weather here with much accuracy. The best thing to do is plan for wind and rain on every trip and keep an eye on a number of different forecasts and web cams before you head out.
Tides, Currents and Boat Traffic
TIDE AND CURRENTS
To the untrained eye Sequim Bay resembles a calm lake but anyone who has paddled through the entrance to the bay or in front of the marina while the tide is rising knows the currents are complex and potentially dangerous. Flow in and out of the bay at the entrance (Washington Harbor) can be as much as 3.2 to 3.5 meters per second. The best time to paddle through is at slack tide (as it switches from incoming to outgoing tide or visa versa). Experienced and strong paddlers can use eddys and well-planned routes to get in and out if paddling against a flooding (incoming) or ebbing (outgoing) tide. On an ebb tide, the water can also be rough if there is a north wind as the wind waves and swell from the Strait of Juan de Fuca criss-cross the outgoing current. The south end of the bay is far more tame and you will avoid almost all current if you are south of the State Park.
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (located at the entrance to the bay) has created a fantastic video that will show you the direction and intensity of the current in the bay over a 24 hour period.
Science is pretty cool.
BOAT TRAFFIC
John Wayne Marina is one of the area’s most popular places for boaters and commercial fisherman to launch. Many are headed north, out to the Strait of Juan Fuca and often at a high rate of speed. Travis Spit creates a bit of a blind corner so you may suddenly find a boat bearing down on you as you cross from one side to another. Luckily there are channel markers that create a nice “highway” for them to travel and for paddlers to avoid. To stay out of their way, don’t dilly dally at the entrance to the marina or the entrance to the bay. If on the western side of the “highway,” stay west of the red buoy then stay very close to shore as you approach the PNNL lab site. The other option is to stay east of the channel markers toward the center of the bay.
PADDLER’S TIP:
What do the buoy colors mean for those boaters? The easiest thing to remember is RED, RIGHT, RETURN. If the buoy is RED, it should be on the boat’s RIGHT, if it’s making its RETURN trip back to the marina.
SEQUIM BAY PADDLER’S GUIDE MAP
We’ve created a custom Google map to show you:
* All the points of interest listed below
* Distance measurements between locations
* Locations of buoys and regular boat traffic
Once you’ve opened the map, use the checkboxes on the left to display more or less data.
History and Points of Interest
OVERVIEW
Any discussion of the history of Sequim Bay starts with the S’Klallam people (sometimes spelled Klallam or Clallam). Tribal ancestors have made Sequim Bay and the surrounding area their home for centuries and the current Jamestown S’Klallam Tribal headquarters and administrative buildings are appropriately located at the head of the bay in Blyn.
Spanish and English explorers began to arrive and map the area in the early 1790s with Capt. George Vancouver’s expedition being the most notable. But both Vancouver in 1792 and Spanish explorer Manuel Quimper in 1790 failed to spot Sequim Bay behind the long sand spit that separates it from the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Spanish ships commanded by Francisco de Eliza were the first to name the bay “Ensenado de Bertodano” in 1791. In 1841, the United States Exploring Expedition under the command of Lt. Charles Wilkes was the first to map the bay and name the various sandy points located around the harbor. The Wilkes Expedition’s name for the bay was Budd’s Harbour and only Pitship Point and Kiapot Point retain the name given to it by this US expedition.
The name “Sequim” originates from the S’Klallam village at the entrance of the bay called Suxtcikwi’in. An early and incorrect translation of the word was “quiet waters” but the correct meaning from the S’Klallam language is “place for going to shoot,” relating to the plentiful hunting opportunities of waterfowl and elk in the area. The area is rich with naming controversies and Sequim Bay is no exception so you will see some older maps calling the entire bay “Washington Harbor” when in fact that is only the name of the area near the entrance to the bay.
With the arrival of the earliest white settlers and continuing on to present day, the bay and surrounding communities have been home to industries such as logging, agriculture, shellfishing and scientific research while providing endless outdoor recreational opportunities for locals and tourists alike.
1841 Map – davidrumsey.com
WANT TO READ MORE?
Fish Tales of Sequim Bay by Harriet Fish (1985)
This pamphlet is a nice little resource for the overall history of the bay.
Available for purchase at the Sequim Museum and Arts Center.
Klallam Folk Tales and Klallam Ethnography by Erna Gunther (1927)
Essential reading for S’Klallam history. Most other history books on the Tribe cite Gunther as a source.
Read now on Google Books
PITSHIP POINT / JOHNSON CREEK / JOHN WAYNE MARINA / JOHN WAYNE’S WATERFRONT RESORT
In the late 1800’s, Pitship Point, also known as Cannery Point at that time, saw a trading post, post office, log dump and cannery all come and go, mostly relocated to Blyn by early pioneer Benjamin F. Dean. But artifacts found in the area show that the original residents, the S’Klallams, were making use of Pitship Point for at least 2000 years before any of the early white settlers. Today, Pitship Point and the adjacent Johnson Creek are home to John Wayne Marina and John Wayne’s Waterfront Resort. Actor John Wayne visited the area on his boat the Wild Goose and fell in love with the area. In 1968, he purchased a large tract of land and donated a portion so that a marina could be built. Constructed in 1985, the marina is operated by the Port of Port Angeles and features Dockside Grill restaurant, boat ramps and moorage, a public park as well as bathroom and laundry facilities.
Click the picture above to go to the Department of Ecology Coastal Atlas Shoreline Photo site and see what Pitship Point looked like before John Wayne Marina was built.
John Wayne’s Waterfront Resort is still owned by the Wayne family and provides historic cabins, camping and RV sites with amazing views of Sequim Bay. The site has long been used as a vacation destination, previously as Silver Sands Resort, Hague’s Resort and Trailer Park, and even earlier as Johnson Creek Auto Camp.
— Image courtesy of the Museum and Arts Center in Sequim-Dungeness.
Unknown date but the cars on the road appear to be from the 1920s.
FUN FACT: John Wayne’s yacht, “Wild Goose” began its life as a mine sweeper during World War II. Wikipedia has more info.
More to come as I rebuild the site…
No posts were found.