Fox Island, Raft Island, and more

Monday, January 15, 2018

An afternoon country drive.

I can’t think of hardly anything better than being retired and having good friends who are also retired and footloose.  We get to pick a nice, sunny day (even in January) and go for a drive in the country just to see what’s out there.

On this particular day, a friend of mine and I decided to head west of Tacoma, crossing the infamous Tacoma Narrows Bridge (now there’s a subject for a great blog post for sure! … ok, it will be coming soon).  After the busy big city-ness of Tacoma, once across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, you are immediately immersed in the calm countryside of greater Puget Sound.

With Seattle and Tacoma on the eastern side of Puget Sound, that means most of the western side of Puget Sound is a land and water wonderland of bridges and ferries and boats of all sizes, of islands and bays and rocky beaches, of eagles and cormorants and harbor seals.  It’s just a really tranquil, pretty place to be.

For this day’s outing, this friend of mine and I explored just one portion of one small peninsula that juts out from the Kitsap Peninsula.  [There is so much to see and do around Puget Sound that you could spend a lifetime and not see it all.]

We drove up and down country roads past comfortable homes and small farms and huge stands of evergreen trees.  Eventually we came to a bridge that took us over to Fox Island (below).

The bridge is tall enough to allow pretty much any recreational power boat to go underneath, even large recreational power boats.  But sailboats must go around Fox Island (Fox Island is about 5 miles long and less than a mile wide on average so it doesn’t take much extra boating time to go around the island as opposed to going under the bridge).

When we were mid-span on the bridge, I stopped the truck and took three photos (one above, and two below) looking to our right … northwest to the Olympic Mountains.

 

And then also from the middle of the bridge, I turned and took photos (below) looking to our left … southeast to parts of Fox Island and to Mt. Rainier.

Right next to the bridge was this old lighthouse that was connected to a tiny island (Tanglewood Island) right next to Fox Island.  Originally, there was a large 3-story “Great Hall” on tiny Tanglewood Island with two walkways leading from that building out to the lighthouse.  The “Great Hall” was demolished in 2014 because of rotting wood frames and water intrusion into the building’s foundation.  An official report states that “the top of the lighthouse has been missing since 2004.”  The truth is that the entire “Great Hall” building and the lighthouse were built as a boys’ camp, and the lighthouse never really was a lighthouse.  Tanglewood Island is inaccessible except by boat which would make it a great kids’ camp.

Above is the “lighthouse” next to tiny Tanglewood Island, with Fox Island almost surrounding Tanglewood Island, and with Mt. Rainier in the distance.

 

Female Common Merganser (mergus merganser).

One website says this is a female Bufflehead.  Wikipedia calls this a “duck”.  Another website says it is a Hooded Merganser/Bufflehead hybrid.

Some kind of Merganser maybe, but I can’t find one like it online.

Just before the bridge joined Fox Island, we noticed lots of boats moored at private docks or in small groups like the group above, where some boats were uncovered and some were in boathouses, with short dock walkways from the shore out to the boats.

We didn’t explore Fox Island, but will save that for a later date.  We had too much more to see!

Back on the peninsula after leaving Fox Island, we headed north past more picturesque farms and homes and wooded acreage.

 

 

Not too far up the road, we came to a smaller bridge over to Raft Island, a smaller island than Fox Island but still large enough for many homes.

This bridge was tall enough only for small boats to get under.  Docks on this island had to be built WAY out from land because the beaches go dry at low tide.

 

We were here in January, not boating season!  When warmer summer months roll around, each one of these white buoys will have a small boat tied to it for use by the home owners who own the boats.  Water skiing, swimming, fishing, crabbing, and scuba diving are popular summer pastimes hereabouts.

Again, we didn’t explore Raft Island, but will save it for another day.  A little further up the road we found this old tractor.  The seat was gone, the steering wheel was gone, but the engine seemed intact.  Hey, anyone have the key?  Let’s start ‘er up!  [Notice the metal treads on the large rear wheels.]

It was a great day for a drive in the country.  Puget Sound has so many islands and inlets and coves and tiny peninsulas that it’s quite the zig-zaggy drive to explore … it’s great fun!