RE: [Paddlewise] Hart: Open beaches ruling may sink high court careers - Houston Chronicle

Even if it was actually her private land where your group had landed, the law
of the sea is "any port in a storm".

Sometime in the 1980's the WA Department of Natural Rescources began
publishing booklets and maps titled something like Your Public Lands that had
the shorelines listed as to what their actual status was and descriptions of
the boundries. I know they did the San Juan Islands and the Straits of Juan de
Fuca, but I don't think they got much further than that. I suspect that some
influential waterfront landowners, realizing an informed public was a serious
threat to their privacy and how they treated the beach as their private
property, put up such a fuss that the DNR program was suspended. After a while
you couldn't even get those brochures that had already been published. I know,
I tried getting them for our store, without any success.




Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2012 18:39:29 -0700
Subject: Re: [Paddlewise] Hart: Open beaches ruling may sink high court
careers - Houston Chronicle
From: drbc_at_pdx.edu
To: marinerkayaks_at_msn.com
CC: paddlewise_at_paddlewise.net

A bunch of us spent a kayaking and camping weekend on Squaxin Island,
Washington state. As we paddled past
Boston Harbor, we encountered some black and scary looking water along an eddy
line, and we decided to make an
emergency landing on the shore, as most of us were scared shirtless.
Immediately upon landing, the landowner came
running down to the water's edge and demanded that we leave immediately.  But
we preferred to confront the lady rather than to return to the dark churning
water nearby. She eventually returned to her nice safe cozy domicile while we
regrouped.

Brad



On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 6:21 PM, MATT MARINER BROZE <marinerkayaks_at_msn.com>
wrote:

Bradford Crain drbc_at_pdx.edu wrote:

.......Beaches in Washington state are privately owned. Very inconvenient for
kayakers.......

This is not entirely correct. Washington has a patchwork system. Many beaches
are public to the mean high water line but others are completely private. One
has to do the research. May private landowners on watefront like to give the
impression that they own the beach rights when, in fact, they don't. This has
causes conflicts between property owners and kayakers and in the San Juan
Islands many, once public, launch sites near ferry terminals were closed off
to try to stop a lot of kayakers from landing on what are actually public
beaches in front of private lands.
***************************************************************************
PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed
here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire
responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author.
Submissions:     PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net
Subscriptions:   PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net
Website:         http://www.paddlewise.net/
***************************************************************************