(BYOB) New Moon Bioluminescence Paddleboarding - Port Gamble! (Kitsap Peninsula)

NOTE: This event is BYOB - bring your own boat! I will not be lending out kayaks or paddleboards for this event!

WARNING : PRIOR EXPERIENCE REQUIRED. Paddling at night can be very dangerous. Attendees must complete a waiver. Please see below for more information on the waiver and the specific hazards for this activity.

NOTE: For legal reasons, our events begin with a live safety lecture that will be video-recorded and pan across all of the attendees.

NOTE: This meetup is cross-listed with the Seattle Paddleboard Club and Seattle Kayaking Meetup, neither of which have an age limit.

NOTE: I created a Discord community with a channel named "bioluminescence" to facilitate communication between the three meetup groups for this specific category of events, since the meetup app doesn't work well for live back-and-forth texting. Please install Discord and join our community even if you aren’t a driver, because you may need to communicate over Discord on your driver’s behalf, or if others in your car don’t have signal but you DO. You can join here:

https://discord.gg/uKVcUtcfZ

Attendees are required to physically sign a waiver at the start of the event :

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j1UJCgXCKP6kpINTvB5YO9utKgKrp79a/view?usp=sharing

Please read through the waiver BEFORE the day of the event, since the waiver also contains safety information that may require personal reflection and impact your preparation or your decision whether or not to attend. Unless something changes in the future, your waiver should be valid for all future activities and you will only need to complete the waiver once.

Hazards and Safety Considerations

There are a few important hazards that need to be mentioned with this particular trip since it is at night :

• Under US Coast Guard and Washington State regulations, all paddled vessels are required to carry a white light at night, to exhibit in time to prevent a collision. Please reach out to me ahead of time if you would like to borrow one. I may have extras, but please do not assume so.
• I STRICTLY REQUIRE that all attendees (including pets) wear life vests at all times while on the water, due to the increased concerns for safety since this event is at night. For day-time events, I am normally more lax about this and only require that every attendee carries a life vest on their vessel (not that it is actually worn at all times), but I will be strict about it for this event since it is at night. It is especially important that you wear your life vest so that we can find you and save you if you fall in.
• We will be driving back to Seattle VERY LATE, so drivers, please drink a coffee or something if you need to. If you feel tired, pull over and rest, no matter what! If you think that this trip will pose a serious safety issue for you, ride in someone else's car or do not attend.
• Vision is limited at night, making it hard to locate and rescue someone who falls out of their kayak or experiences some other sort of emergency. Because of this, it is even more essential that we paddle close together as a group. To enable us to do this, we will be paddling much slower than usual and will be paddling much less ambitious distances and will be sticking to sheltered/protected waters. Depending on the size of the group, we will employ buddies/pairs and/or roll calls / partitioned roll calls to periodically ensure that the group is staying together.
• Paddling at night makes it hard to see certain hazards such as rocks. Paddling at night can make it difficult to gauge distances and directions and cause people to get lost. Darkness can also trigger anxiety which can cloud judgment.

Prior Experience Required

I require that all attendees have at least one hour of paddling experience with their own gear before attending this event.

Route & Schedule :

Join us for a unique paddling experience! We'll be paddling at night during a new moon through ripples of blue and/or green bioluminescent light amidst a cute, sheltered cove on the Puget Sound!

We will be paddling a very short distance, but we'll be paddling slowly in order to stay together and maintain safety. We'll plan to spend 1.5 hours on the water.

We'll meet at the Bayview Trailhead parking lot at 9 PM, and we'll try to be ready to carry our gear down at 9:15 PM.

Here's the location of the launch :

https://maps.app.goo.gl/2DBKRTmt4ZNCTrvt9

We'll start by paddling north along the shore, then back to our starting point, then south along the shore, then head back. We will plan to get back to the launch spot at 10:45 PM and be back in Seattle at around midnight. I have checked tidal charts and there is a tide transition, but I think that it should be fairly manageable and the water is fairly deep near the boat launch, so I don't think we need to worry about getting stranded.

If you plan to meet us at the launch, please confirm on the evening of the event that you are on your way and let us know what your ETA is. That being said, I recommend meeting at the carpool location. Oftentimes, our launch sites lack cell signal and it can be hard to find each other at night, so it helps to meet in person beforehand. We may also appreciate additional vehicles for carpooling. Also, it’s a meetup, and carpools are a great opportunity to get to know the other paddlers! This can also make the drive safer since we will be driving at night. Carpools are discussed in more detail below.

Please reach out if you have any questions!

What To Bring

As always, each attendee is required to have a life vest and a whistle. As mentioned earlier, each attendee is required to have a white light such as a headlamp for this specific event. Please reach out to me in advance if you would like to borrow a life vest, a headlamp, or a whistle. I may have extras, but please do not assume so.

I will not be providing drybags for this trip, so please bring your own in order to protect your valuables from water damage during the paddle!

Be sure to bring snacks and water to consume before and after the paddle! You will also still have a minute here and there during the paddle to grab a quick drink or a bite from a quick snack like a trail mix bar. Even though the paddle itself isn't very long, the entire trip (including the drive) is fairly long for a week night, so bring snacks and drinks!

Please bring clothes and especially SHOES that can get wet! Sandals or flip flops can leave your feet exposed to injuries from rocky terrain if we encounter it. I recommend close-toed shoes like beach shoes, crocs, or best of all, neoprene diving boots like these:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J86CN66

We will be paddling at night and it will be cold. For the rest of your outfit, I recommend SYNTHETIC or wool fabrics that will dry quickly. AVOID COTTON in all layers. I recommend swimsuits and polyester running shirts as a base layer with a fleece or wool sweater as an outer layer, and possibly a rainproof/hardshell jacket. In my experience, legs are better at tolerating the cold and are less important to cover, but you may want to consider softshell or hardshell pants.

Transportation and Carpooling :

For those who are interested in driving together from Seattle, we'll meet at Caffe Umbria by the long narrow public parking lot along Westlake Ave at 7:15 PM and leave at around 7:30! Let us know before 7:15 PM if you are on your way. We generally wait 15 minutes for people to arrive. For those bringing inflatable paddleboards, it might be possible to carpool. Please coordinate carpools in the google doc!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Gk4YXiiQkY2QKMXCsAp3_Js_JHl-2xC4mfHLTcUJwsY/edit?usp=sharing

Please keep in mind that even if you can’t find an open spot as a passenger in the doc, you will likely find someone to drive you if you show up at Caffe Umbria at the scheduled start time. Oftentimes, drivers are afraid to agree to drive ahead of time in case they need to cancel, but are willing to drive if they show up on the day of the event. Also, oftentimes there are drivers who RSVP last-minute. I can’t guarantee you a spot if you show up without having found a spot in the doc, but we haven’t YET hosted an event where we didn’t have enough seats in cars.

Riders are expected to (at a bare minimum) split the cost of gas evenly between the driver and the other passengers, as well as a reasonable amount for projected wear and tear on the vehicle.

If you are going to arrange your carpool to meet somewhere OTHER THAN the Caffe Umbria on Lake Union, I suggest a park and ride such as Greenlake, Northgate, Eastgate, or Tukwila/SouthCenter. Passengers, please do not ask to be picked up at your home; drivers, please don't offer to do so. It usually creates problems and makes the timing and logistics much more complicated, since people often aren't ready on time, cancel last minute, or just plain don't show up. On the other hand, dropping people off at their home after the hike is much easier.

Photo

The cover photo was generated using ChatGPT, using other artwork as an inspiration. The colors are only triggered by disturbances in the water and do not occur spontaneously or this vividly. Taking actual photos of bioluminescence is difficult due to the level of surrounding darkness.