Birch Bay & Semiahmoo Spit

Saturday, May 7, 2011

It was supposed to be rainy all weekend, but we lucked out with a break in the rain during the afternoon. Joe had heard great things about Birch Bay, 30 minutes north of Bellingham. It is a great place for recreational cramming and clamming at low tide, which it was. We first went to the beach portion of Birch Bay State Park. There were great picnic areas, but here the shore was smooth round rocks. The headland to the north Birch Bay is Birch Point and the headland to the south is Point Whitehorn. There were signs describing the different species and the limits of how many butter clams, horse clams, littleneck clams, manilla clams, cockles, mussels, Olympia oysters, and Dungeness crabs you can harvest during the season. 

We went up a little further north along the bay. Here the shore was sandy and there were many people out walking during low tide. We walked out to the water edge and search of crabs. We watched an Asian family with shovels and a 5 gallon buckets looking for clams. There were other families out flying kites. The view out from here is mainly of the Canadian Gulf Islands and Orcas Island, one of the San Juan Islands in the US. It’s a great area for bird watching. We saw a Great Blue Heron wading in the tide pools.

 We then drove up to the coast further. We drove out to the sandspit at Semiahmoo Park. It separates Drayton Harbor and Semiahmoo Bay. From here you can view Blaine, in the United States, which is a small town to the east and White Rock, British Columbia in Canada to the north. White Rock actually looks like a big city with two high-rise buildings. At the end of the peninsula is Semiahmoo Resort with a beautiful golf course and spa.

Chance seemed to be happy to get out this weekend. I still can’t believe we were only a stone’s throw away from Canada. I see a trip to Vancouver in the near future. Here’s hoping for a non-rainy weekend.