James Island
James Island stands like a sentinel at the mouth of the Quillayute River near the Olympic coastal town of La Push. The complicated currents that surround the island make for an exciting place to take a sea kayak, when the weather is good, anyway. When winter storms beat down on the coast, however, the beaches around La Push are pounded with giant Pacific breakers… no place for the faint of heart. The local Coast Guard station is one of the busiest anywhere in the Pacific Northwest.
There is a uniquely Northwest event held here called the Surf Pummel. Kayakers and surfers come here each winter to try their luck in the high-intensity, crappy, towering winter surf off of James Island. Sometimes the waves are twenty feet high, blown violently onto the shore by forty-knot winds on days when the slanting rain reduces visibility to a few hundred feet, at best.
I have never gone to this event, but I’m thinking about going next year. It is an amazingly beautiful and powerful spot and, at this point, other than having boiling water dumped on my head by angry locals, the Pummel might be, so far, the most painful thing I associate with the area.