 |
by Jo Bailey and Carl Nyberg Puget Sound offers many good gunkholes for those who don't have the time or desire to venture too far from home or have already "done" the islands. Winter cruising in Puget Sound can be a delightful experience providing you keep warm and dry, have a secure destination, and be aware of weather, tides and currents. We'll help with the destinations, the rest is up to you. For years "going cruising" meant taking a couple of weeks each summer and heading north to explore the beautiful, secluded, paradise-like islands of the San Juans. It still does mean that for many mariners new to the area. Lower Puget Sound is being rediscovered by some who haven't had the time or desire to venture too far from home or have already "done" the islands. They're finding intriguing, sometimes lesser-known places, they overlooked in the past and enjoying it. Winter cruising lends itself well to these local explorations. This month we visit Dockton and Burton in Quartermaster Harbor on Vashon-Maury Islands and share some of the fascinating history of the area. Quartermaster Harbor Going north, a good gunkhole is Quartermaster Harbor, between beautiful Vashon and Maury islands, a quick and easy place to go if you want to be north of the Narrows. Isolated from Seattle and Tacoma, the harbor makes a great winter anchorage in just about any weather. In fact, we find Vashon and Maury Islands to be undiscovered treasures with a wealth of history, and interesting, independent islanders. It's close to two urban centers but with all the warmth and wonders of island living, plus encroaching environmental challenges, especially on Maury Island. Quartermaster Harbor is between the south ends of Vashon and Maury islands. It opens about 0.8 mile east of the Tahlequah ferry landing at the south end of Vashon, with the entrance between Neill Point on Vashon and Piner Point on Maury Island. It's a nearly five-mile-long inlet, about a half-mile wide, that extends about 3-1/2 miles north between the islands. It then turns east into the bay at Dockton, swings north around Burton Peninsula, past Portage and turns west, ending in the "inner harbor" at Burton. A rocky shoal off Manzanita on Maury is marked by red nun buoy "2." Legend has it that the rock was known to early Native Americans as "Killer Whale's Mother." The whales still play around this rock even today. Vashon and Maury are joined by a sandy neck of land at Portage. This low isthmus was once a tombolo much lower than it is now, where Native Americans portaged their canoes from Quartermaster to Tramp Harbor on the east shore, and it is also a sacred place. 
Evergreens line the shores andclimb the hills above Quartermaster Harbor, with heights rising to over 400 feet on both islands. There are good anchorages as well as several places to moor in the north end of the harbor.
Dockton harbor area along the east shore and the waters around Burton Peninsula are fun for small boat gunkholing and exploring. You'll see a plethora of kayaks being paddled around here almost any time of year. In 1891, a 325 foot drydock was towed to Maury Island and set up at Dockton. The huge drydock installation, 100 feet wide and 12 feet deep, was a major employer, with more than 400 workers who built and refurbished ships. Many workers commuted from Tacoma by company steamers. Vashon was considered extraordinarily convenient because it was midway between Seattle and Tacoma, with protected Quartermaster Harbor at the south end. This was back in the days before highways, when all transportation was by water and communities were linked by steamers and even rowboats. Vashon was right on the main watery thoroughfare. It wasn't until the early 1900s that Dockton began to lose its monopoly on the boat building business. Railroads and highways became the transportation of the day around Puget Sound. Steamboats were on the way out. Vashon, the center during the boat building era, became an isolated island, passed over by what was then considered new technology. Inside Dockton's "non-point" is a small commercial facility with some floats, private buoys, fishboats, older buildings and net sheds. In the southeast part of this bay is 23-acre Dockton-a King County Park. Dockton Marine Park Moorage facilities at this well-maintained park include space for nearly 60 boats at modern concrete floats. Thirty-foot slips are inside the breakwater float and 25-foot slips are in the tier out from shore. Larger boats can also tie outside on the breakwater float, but if it's breezy out of the north it may be lumpy. The slips are entered on the southeast side. There are no electrical or water hookups, restrooms are on the dock. Fees are $15 per night for boats through 25 feet, and $20 per night for those 26 feet and over-three-day moorage limit. Verify the depth with a fathometer. Onshore are picnic areas, restrooms with showers open from 8 a.m. to dusk (showers are usually turned off in winter), play and picnic areas, swimming area in summer, hiking trails, a launch ramp with trailer parking, a pet walking area at the head of the dock, phone booth and a bus stop. Park phone is 206-463-2947. Anchoring is possible in this area of Dockton Harbor in 3 to 5 fathoms, mud bottom, although we've heard it is not the best holding ground. Be aware of permanently anchored boats and charted "Submerged piles" which are not specifically located. There are no nearby amenities such as a store or post office as there once were. Nearby roads are great for longer walks, although there is a fair amount of vehicle traffic along this part of Maury Island. Trailheads on 260th Street, east and above the dock, head south into DNR land with good trails in one of the last remaining madrona forests in the area. Burton Peninsula and Burton Burton Peninsula juts into Quartermaster Harbor less than one mile north of Dockton. It's a forested, rounded nub of land about 100 feet high. Burton Beach stretches about one mile along the sunny south shore, with clusters of beach cabins on the bank waterfront. 
Burton Peninsula is the site of an old Native American village which was the scene of the famous War with the Snakes. Warriors came here to avenge the death of a snake in the Duwamish Valley. The only house spared was one in which the folks were singing "crying songs" for the dead snake.
A low spit connects the peninsula to the Burton community, which was named "Gospel Spit" by settlers in the early 1900s because old-fashioned revival camp meetings were held on the spit. Old Indian burial sites have been found along here where the Bayview Pavilion Dance Hall held many social occasions in the early 1900s. "Governor's Row" at Burton Beach includes the homes of two former governors, Albert D. Rosellini and Booth Gardner. Burton Acres Park is a 68-acre day use park in the heart of Burton Peninsula. Heavily forested, it is interlaced with hiking trails. A launch ramp is at the northeast point of the park, as well as picnic tables and restrooms. Anchoring is possible off the park in one or two fathoms. Cruising around the north side of Burton Peninsula puts you into the shoaling inner harbor at Burton. There are two places to moor boats in the harbor: Quartermaster Marina at the southwest corner of the harbor and Quartermaster Yacht Club. The marina has little guest moorage, but they keep several places available for visiting boats, with moorage $15. Haulout for private repairs and repair facilities are available. The marina is approached through a channel marked by uncharted privately maintained red and green buoys. Check in for moorage at the office, phone 206-463-3624. Quartermaster Yacht Club, just north of the marina, has facilities available to members of reciprocal yacht clubs; phone 206-463-3309. Anchoring is possible off Burton in charted depths of 10 to 15 feet. The anchorage may be crowded, especially in summer. Burton community has a delightful general store, the Burton Mercantile, built in 1908. It carries groceries, some marine supplies, some hardware and lots of ambiance. The store is closed on Mondays but open from 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. the rest of the week. Burton also has an espresso stand, post office, art gallery, the Back Bay Inn and Restaurant. Check for days and hours that they're open. There are many walking opportunities here after the boat is secured, especially out to the peninsula. There's also a bus stop, and island buses will take you all around Vashon. Judd Creek empties into the northwest corner of the inner harbor, with a highway bridge over the creek. The legend of Judd Creek is of an old Indian Woman, Lemai, mother of Kate Hanson, who buried a fortune here and died suddenly. Islanders have dug for the treasure but found none. Another small creek enters the harbor halfway along the north shore. It was the site of Fort Necessity, a shelter which was the first white settlement on Vashon Island in November 1877. Portage Portage is in the northeast corner of the harbor. This is the site of the old Indian canoe portage. As charted, submerged piles and tideflats extend offshore, and it's not the place for a keel boat, but okay for kayaking or a beachable boat. This area is a protected waterbird area marked with an Audubon Society reader board. On the beach in Tramp Harbor at Portage across the road in front of the now-closed store (built in 1905) are remains of pilings from a dock that was used by Mosquito Fleet boats back around the turn of the last century when many boats supplied island settlements throughout the islands of Puget Sound. "Everything went through Des Moines on the mainland shore, and arrived here and at Ellisport and other landings," Jim Smith, longtime islander, told us. He said that a long, unpronounceable (for non-Native American speakers) Indian word for Portage meant, "Place where one draws a canoe across the land." Apparently water always ran through the portage but sand bars allowed people to walk between the islands, even though winter storms sometimes cut through the low-lying land. It was always a marsh, but a road was built over it between the islands, Smith said. He was familiar with the last battle the Salish Indians on Vashon-Maury had with the Haidas of the north. The dreaded northern Indians would come down, terrorize the local Indians and take slaves away. "The Indians here were peaceful, had never fought a war. They built a village above the site of the present fishing pier in Tramp Harbor. It was very obvious to the raiders from the sea that this would be an easy place to take. The local Indians made a plan for when the Haidas came again, which included look-out spots near the Portage where the enemy could be seen as they paddled in. The Salish began to have boulder tossing contests, where the men would increase their strength and size of the boulders they could throw. "The lookouts alerted them when the marauding canoes approached. The Haidas landed at both Ellisport and Portage on the Tramp Harbor side. Then they made a major mistake. They left their canoes on the beaches while they went ashore to capture slaves and raise havoc. The local Indians arrived at the Portage (Quartermaster Harbor side) in their own canoes-filled with rocks. Using their newly developed strength they dropped the huge rocks in the Haida canoes, smashing them." No one knows for sure how many warriors and canoes were in the Haida armada, but there were "many, many." No one knows for sure how they left the islands or where they went. But it is known, for sure, that they never again attacked Vashon. Over the years many Native American ceremonies were held near Portage as it has long been a sacred place to the Indians. The land between the islands has since been built up and today there's a road about one block long between Quartermaster and Tramp harbors. Tramp Harbor is a large shallow bay on the east side of Vashon-Maury, the site of several radio and TV towers, not suitable for overnight anchoring, but can be a fun lunch stop to take the kids and dogs for a run on the beach at low NOAA charts and other helpful publications:
 ...back to 48° North title page.
|