Directions: From Highway 20, 4.4 miles south of Oak Harbor or 6.4 miles north of Coupeville, turn onto Hastie Lake Road and drive to Hastie Lake Beach Park. Or, like we did, park at West Beach County Park a mile south of Joseph Whidbey State Park on West Beach Road, accessible via Fort Nugent Road near the south end of Oak Harbor.

By Bus: Take Route 6 between Coupeville and Oak Harbor. It follows West Beach Road.

By bike: See the driving directions above. The roads are mostly narrow, rolling, and relatively little traffic.

Mobility: the beach is sandy, gravelly, and rocky.

Tides: Make sure you don't go when the tide is high or rising to be high soon.

Winter is draping his coat on the back of a chair and rolling up his sleeves. It’s getting a bit too warm for him. Pausing by the punch bowl, he scans the dance hall. His eyes lock on the door. Spring has just swept in with her light flowered dress flowing in a soft breeze. Winter watches her glide tentatively into the room. He’s been dancing all night with vigor unmatched. Now he grows weary. But perhaps, one more.
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The music starts. He takes her hand. Shyly, she follows him, and the dance begins. They are stepping forward, turning back, swinging this way, swaying that. His arm finds her waist. She turns her head. They skip and sway in a circle, then in a line. They come together, then apart. She is smiling, spinning, dazzling. She moves with grace and strength. Surprised at her spirit, he feels his energy leave him. She twirls with delight. He collapses into a chair.

After a chilly night, morning dawned on the equinox pink and perfect. It was a fine spring day, warm enough to find folks going barefoot on the sand and testing the waters.

As I entered the park the sign overhead read, “Double Bluff Beach Park,” and in one corner in smaller letters it said, “FETCH!”. What an interesting word, I thought, with so many definitions. I pondered it as I walked.

fetch

verb: 1. To go for and then bring back (someone or something).
2. To achieve (a particular price) when sold.  
 
Noun: 1. The distance traveled by wind or waves across open water.
 
I’d learned that from sailors. From Double Bluff across Puget Sound is a long expanse of water with plenty of room for winds to stir up waves and wreak havoc for boats and sailors.
 
Then I thought of the term, fetching, as in attractive or appealing. This weather was appealing to me, and this beautiful beach was certainly attractive. I walked on and enjoyed hours of watching dogs, birds and people. All of us basking in this spring day at the beach.
 
When I got home and googled it, I found out why the word, FETCH appeared on the park sign. This particular FETCH stands for Free Exercise Time for Canines and their Humans. (I wonder how long it took to come up with that acronym.)
 
FETCH is a non-profit group with hundreds of two legged members and roughly twice as many four legged friends. The group formed when someone who had let their dog run off-leash at Double Bluff had a run-in with the law.
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There are responsible dog owners who pick-up after their pets and try to keep their dogs from bothering other people. And then there are irresponsible dog owners who give all the others a bad name.
 
FETCH are the good guys. They petitioned the county to let them have a certain part of Double Bluff for off-leash dog play. They struck a deal. The county said they’d try it for a year if FETCH assumed responsibility for providing pet waste bags and monitoring behavior. That was in 1999. And it still works. FETCH partners with Island County Parks to maintain the off-leash dog park.
 
When you go to Double Bluff, you’ll find pet waste bags and trash cans, a dog water fountain and a rinsing station, a fenced in picnic area with no dogs allowed, vault toilets for people, and miles of beautiful beach, bluff and bay to explore with your best buddy.
 
Dogs must be kept on a leash for the first 500 feet of the park before letting them loose. The border is marked by a bedraggled wind sock. If you let your dog off-leash any sooner, you may be fined $500. For details about FETCH, whether verb, noun, adjective or acronym, google it!
 
Maribeth
 
Learn more about FETCH! here.

​Directions: From Freeland, take Highway 525 south about a mile to Double Bluff Road. Turn right (south) and follow it about 2 miles to the end. If the parking lot is full, park along the shoulder outside the park and watch for traffic.
 
By Bike and Bus: Island Transit Route 1 fare free bus will stop where Double Bluff Road meets Highway 525. Double Bluff Road has a very gentle grade down to the beach with a good shoulder for bikes. Two bikes fit on a bus bike rack. Please wear something bright when walking or biking along the road.
 
Mobility: There are picnic tables and benches overlooking the beach at the park entrance. To get to the water, one must get over a logstacle course of driftwood. The beach is sandy for miles with logs to sit on along the way.

Directions: Take your bike on he Skagit 410 bus or drive to the Guemes Ferry Terminal at 6th Street and I Avenue in Anacortes. Take the ferry to Guemes Island. Walk the beach westward to Kelly's Point, or follow South Shore Drive west to the parking lot where South Shore Drive becomes West Shore Drive. Respect private property, of course.

Mobility: the ferry approach ramps are sloped. The roadways are paved and mostly flat or gently sloped, with minimal traffic. The beach is sandy and gravelly and not passable at the highest of tides.

Last Week
35 degrees. Rain threatened. Winds gusted. Cold nipped our noses as we arrived at the ballfields at Volunteer Park.

High school teams of men and women practiced baseball, lacrosse, soccer, and band music. Sirens wailed along nearby city streets. We walked behind the fields and fences into the woods and wilds. The urban sights and sounds became muted memories.

No songbirds sang of spring today. Strong breezes whipped the tops of birches and alders, whispering secrets to the cedars and firs. I took shortcuts and longcuts among the ponds and backwaters. Crunching through frosted grass, we found a pond half frozen with the thinnest film of ice. What do you do when you stand next to lake ice? You step on it! I tapped the surface with my toe and it shattered into a liquid mirror.

At the top of an alder, catkins fluttered on branches like dancers looking for partners. Three people passed us as we stood. Two were joggers, whose eyes stared straight ahead, passing without a smile or word. Then a woman strolled along. She stopped to ask what we were looking at. The tops of the alders, we said, and she said she didn’t know the trees here, but she was glad that we were looking up as it reminded her to look up too. She continued on her way, still looking up at the dances high above us.

Leafless maples waltzed with clouds. The music of the wind sighed to us earth-dwellers down below. A drizzle began. We shivered a little, wrapped our coats tighter, and walked on.

Looking out over the many ballfields surrounding these woods, hundreds of people played, busy with sport and competition and teamwork. The forest stood apart, an island of wet and wild surrounded by playgrounds and pavement and the ever-present murmurs of the city in the distance. The marshes and woods danced, mostly alone. Winter’s grip held tight.

A week later...

Directions: From 12th and Commercial in Anacortes, go west on 12th Street to G Avenue. Turn left and go two blocks to the parking area. The trails start to the south, behind the fences of the ball fields.

By Bus: Take Skagit Route 410 from March's Point or downtown Anacortes west to 12th Street and G Avenue.

By Bike: the roadways in the downtown Anacortes area are mostly gently sloped. Traffic on 12th can be heavy at times; parallel roads are a good alternative.

Mobility: the trails in the park are paved near the ballfields, and graveled in the woods, with some elevation gain and side slope toward the south end of the park.