PassageMaker

Hell’s Half Acre

“We call it Hell’s Half Acre.” That’s what Chris, a college friend of 25 years, told me some hours after I landed at Washington Park in Anacortes, Washington, and learned first-hand about the stretch of water. By “we,” he meant his family, his dozen or so neighbors who own cabins at Strawberry Bay on the west side of Cypress Island, and now, me.

A day earlier, I’d towed my 13-foot Boston Whaler Super Sport to Washington Park, intent on launching there and then transiting the roughly 4.2 nautical miles to Strawberry Bay. It was a Friday afternoon in late October,

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