Glorious NOTHING
by Jake Beattie
A WEEKEND JAUNT DOWN HOOD CANAL
I
f you’re reading this article hoping to discover the next great cruising destination, you should stop right here. Especially if you rate your itinerary like most guidebooks (swanky places to visit, inspired restaurants, easy access to laundry, artisanal cheeseries) your subconscious already knows why you’ve never cruised Hood Canal: It’s a long way from everywhere, it’s on the way to nowhere, and there’s almost nothing there — and I mean that in the best way. For a lot of boaters, nothing is an issue. No shame. Plenty of folks avoid destinations with nowhere to stop, nothing to do, no boutique brewery/distillery/restaurant/charming shop owned by Seattle/Bay Area/Big Tech transplants who decided to cash it all in and splash their hobby business all over their Insta feeds and #livetheirbestlife. Hood Canal seems to have none of that, and for me, that’s the point. It’s the undisturbed nothing of the place that makes it worth going to, especially in February. One mid-February weekend, my family and I borrowed the 32-foot custom wooden M/V Kloshie Bay and decided to make a weekend of it. Rather than facing a gale in the Strait, or the COVID threat of you monsters in King County, Hood Canal looked like our ticket. We were looking for nature we’d never found, and we found it. Sort of.
48º NORTH
HOOD CANAL — WHAT DID WE KNOW? WHAT DID WE CARE? We had two days, fuel to spare, and a boat with the amenities that felt like Spartan opulence compared to our years of openboat camp cruising: a head that wasn’t a bucket, a roof that wasn’t a tent, bunks that weren’t Thermarests, a diesel heater. We couldn’t figure out the fridge, but whatever — the weather was cold enough that, even without ice, our topsides cooler worked just fine. We were living large. We fired up, took in the fenders, and kept turning right until we were under the floating bridge that spans what feels like the moat between urban insanity and the prospect of simpler times. Entering Hood Canal is technically simple. There is current, but it tops out most days at a knot or so and it’s not too swirly. It’s either with you or against you depending on the flow and your direction. Wind patterns seem to be the same binary north or south of Puget Sound. There’s a bridge to contend with, but fixed height transits to the east and west means there’s no need to ask for an opening if your boat tops out at less than 55-feet. Luckily, you still can open the bridge if you’re feeling tall and/ or spiteful enough to cause a traffic jam. The bridgetender answers on Channel 13. Back to the nothing: By now, I’m sure the combined force of the Kitsap, Mason, and Jefferson County Chambers of Commerce are
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