Sucia Island

Arrrrrgh! Grab a chart me mateys and follow along as I tell ye a tale o’ social distancing on the high seas. Arrrrrgh (again)!

Or, you can have a look at the route we took here.

Let me begin with a short history lesson. These Islands were “discovered” (in the Eurocentric sense) and named by Captain Francisco de Eliza of Spain. Hence the “correct” pronunciation is Sue-see-ah. But if you say that, you will undoubtedly be corrected, “It’s Sue-sha“.

Sucia Island is everyone’s favorite, or so you might think on a busy summer weekend when you can’t find a decent anchorage and the beaches are overrun with frolicking families.

There are good reasons to love Sucia. It’s an interesting shaped Island – kind of hard to describe, look on the map – that provides lots of sheltered places to park a boat and over 10k of walking trails. You’ll see lots of birds, seals and sometimes river otters. The latter are always good for a laugh as they truly seem to enjoy just playing around.

After a 2+ hour cruise across glassy-smooth water from Anacortes, we tied to one of two buoys in narrow Snoring Bay. I’d been intrigued by this small, shallow bay in the past, but was never able to find space.

That’s Matia Island in the distance, subject of my next blog post.

We idled the afternoon and evening away, enjoying the quiet and reading.

The next morning after pancakes and bacon, we took the dinghy to shore and did a walk along the arm of the Island that separates Snoring Bay from Fossil Bay.

Note Impromptu’s beautiful new carpeting.
This was our winter project. Not *doing* it, paying for it.

Landing on the beach at Snoring Bay is very difficult because the water is shallow and dries to about halfway to where Impromptu lies. That’s a long walk in the mud carrying a heavy dinghy if you miscalculate the tides!

Could it be nesting season?
We saw lots of geese paired up and looking nervous.

Looking into Fossil Bay from the separating pennsiula.

Fossil Bay
The dock has been removed. Boats would be too close together to maintain good social distancing.

A view of Impromptu from the peninsula.
Boat owners love taking pictures of their boats!

A previous visitor left some interesting folk art behind. Note the tiny crab in the middle!

The next morning, we took a longer walk to the head of Echo and Shallow Bays. It begins as a typical up-and-down winding trail walk, then joins a service road which leads to the heads of the two opposing bays.

Mary Anne on the access road to Echo Bay

Echo Bay looking towards Mt. Baker. In a normal year, the bay would be full of boats.

Shallow Bay, aptly named.
That’s Patos Island in the distance. From there, a well-thrown frisbee would land in Canada.
(Not really)

The soft sandstone is easily eroded by wind and waves.

One thing about having Celiac disease, you wind up snacking on things that would look more at home hanging in a bird cage.

Ever see one of those little bells made of seeds for birds to peck at?

We were joined on the second buoy in Snoriing Bay by Anacortes friends.

The next morning, we both set out for Matia Island.

Share This Post