Kayaking to Sucia Island: The San Juans' Best Overnight Is a 2.5-Mile Crossing Away

There's a moment about halfway through the crossing when Orcas Island stops feeling close behind you and Sucia starts feeling close ahead, and you realize you're a small boat on big water in the best possible way. Kayaking to Sucia Island is the classic San Juan Islands overnight for a reason: a 2.5-mile open-water crossing from Orcas Island's North Beach, then a horseshoe-shaped marine park with sandstone coves, fossil-studded shorelines, and campsites you can only reach by boat. I've made this crossing in glassy calm and in wind-against-current chop, and both times I understood exactly why paddlers guard their Sucia weekends like gold.

Why Sucia Island Deserves a Spot on Your List

Sucia is a 558-acre marine state park shaped like a hand with its fingers spread, and every gap between the fingers is a protected bay. Shallow Bay on the west side catches the sunset and has a sandy, kayak-friendly beach. Fossil Bay has the docks and the busiest camp scene. Echo Bay is the big one, and Ewing Cove and Fox Cove are where you go when you want a quiet morning with nothing but herons for company. The sandstone here has been folded and carved into honeycomb galleries and wave-sculpted ledges you can paddle right alongside at high tide.

The island earns its name in the fossils, too. The folded shoreline rock is loaded with marine fossils, and in 2012 paleontologists pulled Washington's first dinosaur fossil, a theropod femur fragment, out of Sucia's rock. You're camping on the most storied geology in the state.

And here's the late-August case: this is the sweet spot. The water is as settled as the Salish Sea gets, the days are still long, potable water is running on the island through September, and the summer boat traffic starts thinning after Labor Day approaches. Water temps still run cold, roughly 50 to 55°F, so this is a wetsuit-or-dress-for-immersion paddle no matter how warm the air feels.

Getting There: Route Details & Coordinates

GPS Coordinates (Sucia Island): 48.7567° N, 122.9081° W

• Put-in: North Beach public access, end of North Beach Road, Eastsound, Orcas Island (limited parking; arrive early on summer weekends)
• Take-out: Same, out-and-back
• Crossing distance: 2.5 miles of open water; Fossil Bay or Shallow Bay landings add a bit of shoreline paddling
• Estimated time: 1 to 1.5 hours each way in settled conditions
• Difficulty: Intermediate. The distance is modest, but this is exposed open water with real current, and conditions change fast

The crossing itself is the trip's exam question. Time your launch to slack current, check the marine forecast, and treat the tide and current tables as required reading, not homework you can skip. Wind against an ebb builds steep, short-period chop out there, and what left North Beach as a lake can meet you mid-channel as a washing machine. Cross early in the morning when the water is most settled, keep your group tight, and know your bailout plan before you leave the beach.

Once you're across, the reward is immediate. Paddle the shoreline into Shallow Bay through its narrow entrance, or swing east toward Fossil Bay past sandstone walls pocked like coral. Ferries and freighters run these waters, so scan the channel before you commit to the crossing and give any large vessel the room its wake deserves. Check current conditions and moorage details at the Washington State Parks Sucia Island page and pull tides from NOAA.

Best Time to Go

Late August into September is my pick. The high-summer crowds ease off, the marine layer burns off earlier than you'd think, and the water is as calm as it gets all year. Sucia's 60 primitive campsites are first-come, first-served, so a mid-week overnight buys you your choice of the coves. Come October the island's potable water shuts off and one of the Fossil Bay docks comes out for the winter, so this window is the last of the easy season.

Pro tip: Launch on the morning slack. You get the calmest crossing, first pick of campsites, and a full afternoon to circumnavigate the island's ten-ish miles of shoreline while the day-trippers are still on the ferry.

Gear Up: What to Bring

An open-water crossing to a boat-in camp is exactly what dry storage and deck navigation were built for.

Every kayaker heading to Sucia should pack:

• Explorer™ Dry Bag: Everything for your overnight rides in your hatches, and hatches are not dry places. Heavy-duty 19oz vinyl, RF-welded seams, made in the USA, and sized from 5L to 55L, so your sleeping bag and camp layers come out of the boat exactly as dry as they went in.
• SeaRover™ Deck Compass: When fog rolls into the channel mid-crossing, your phone is the wrong tool. A deck-mounted compass with a direct-read card lets you hold your bearing to Sucia without taking your eyes off the water or your hands off the paddle.
• Waterproof Phone Case: Between the sandstone galleries, the harbor porpoises, and the sunset at Shallow Bay, you'll want the camera out on the water, not buried in a hatch.

Round it out with immersion wear for 50-degree water, a marine radio or reliable way to check the forecast, a spare paddle, and more drinking water than you think you need for the crossing itself. And a PFD, worn, always. This is cold, open water, and the crossing is no place to find out how fast it saps a swimmer.

Know Before You Go

• Permits: No day-use permit needed to land. Overnight moorage and camping fees are payable on the island; self-register at the bay you land in.
• Fees: Primitive campsites are first-come, first-served (60 sites; 4 group camps reservable). Mooring buoys run $23 and dock space $1 per vessel foot if you're meeting powerboat friends.
• Facilities: Composting and vault toilets, picnic shelters, and potable water from early April through September. Pack out what you pack in beyond that.
• Cell service: Spotty in the outer islands. Do not depend on it mid-channel; carry a VHF or file a float plan.
• Nearest town: Eastsound on Orcas Island, a few minutes from the North Beach put-in, with groceries, fuel, and a proper bakery for the drive home.

The Bottom Line

Sucia is the trip that turns lake paddlers into sea kayakers. The crossing asks you to respect the current, read the water, and earn the far shore, and then it pays you back with sandstone coves, fossil beaches, and a campsite you got to entirely under your own power. Do it in the next few weeks while the water is settled and the island still has its summer services running. Pack your hatches dry, mount the compass, mind the slack, and go claim a cove.