by Robert Blevins

Created on: September 21, 2009

The first time I saw Ozette Island, I was on a camping trip with my Boy Scout troop, and it was 1968. We were hiking along a muddy wilderness trail between the Hoh River and Shi-Shi Beach on the Washington coast. For anyone not familiar with the more remote parts of Washington state, Ozette Island is off the Pacific Coast near Lake Ozette. Except for a few wave-pounded rocks, it is considered the westernmost point of land in the lower forty-eight US states.

The island sits offshore about a half-mile, looking like some picture-postcard Northwest version of Gilligan's Island. It is a thousand yards long, with a low point in the center and is heavily forested, with sandy, inviting beaches. It is also a National Wildlife Refuge island. This means you can go there, but you cannot disturb the wildlife. The Makah Indians considered it special, if not sacred. Since I was restricted to the beach by my Scout troop, I didn't get a chance to try to make the crossing, but it caught my attention and I promised myself I would return.

However, it was fourteen years before I made it back to Ozette. In the summer of 1982, I had taken in two German exchange students who wanted to try a new adventure. I convinced them to accompany me in an attempt to cross over to the island. Lacking enough money for a boat, we purchased fifty long spike nails and a hundred feet of rope. We drove to the parking lot and hiked the three-mile boardwalk leading to the beach. The three of us began scouring the beach for big logs and flat boards. Within a few hours, we had constructed a giant raft with a center log nearly twenty feet in length.

By the time we finished it was getting late and the voyage would have to wait for the next day. We rolled out our sleeping bags, built a crackling fire, and waited impatiently for the morning tide. At dawn, the waves rolled into the beach as the tide changed, and the raft began to float free.

The tide caught the raft and we jumped aboard. Yuli, one of the German students, grabbed the long log that was thrust out our stern as the tiller, while his friend Karl and I used poles to push our way into the surf. We managed to breach some heavy incoming swells and guided the raft into open water. An offshore wind caught us and we were away.

At each end of the island, the waves are high and rolling, so we aimed for the center of the island's longest beach and poled like madmen. An hour later, I jumped into shallow water, grabbed a long rope we had tied to the front

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