Sign at Double Bluff park
Hot in the city? We’re off to a saltwater beach. Double Bluff on Whidbey Island sounded like a terrific place to get out of the heat and enjoy a walk on the beach. Getting there meant taking a ferry from Mukilteo on the mainland to Clinton on the island, always a fun thing to do especially on a warm day. We timed it to arrive when the tide was out and there would be interesting things to see along the shoreline. A group of people were digging clams. When I was a kid there were always plenty of shells and sand dollars, crabs, anemones and other sea creatures on the local beaches but in recent years it has been hard to find much evidence of sea life. However, Double Bluff was loaded with shells of all sorts and sizes, crab shells, and even a sand dollar.
Adjacent to the park is private property with homes along the shoreline. This day every home had flags flying presumably for Labor Day Weekend.
The outgoing tide had left these boats anchored to their floats but on dry land
Low tide with plenty of beach exposed
Rose bushes lined part of the shore, some roses had already gone to the hip stage
others were still in bloom like this one
Lots of shells on the beach
Bob crossing a kelp and rock bed, people digging clams in the background
Clam digging
The Double Bluff for which the park is named
We walked all the way down to the point and back, about 3 1/2 miles
We saw clumps of these yellow beach flowers
Look back toward the way we came
There were several of these driftwood structures along the beach
There were Great Blue Herons wading and fishing in the shallows, cormorants in the sea that occasionally stood up and spread their wings before dipping back down in the water, plenty of gulls walking along the shallows, ospreys flying overhead and in the trees and even a bald eagle sitting a top a tree. The beach is long, sandy with small stones, lots of driftwood, and plenty of wet slippery kelp to wade through to get to the hard sand when we got tired of walking on the soft dry sand.
Great Blue Heron and gulls
Osprey
Butterfly
Count for the day: 50 people, 20 dogs with most of the people and dogs arriving in the afternoon
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