Admiralty Inlet Marine Stewardship Area
Whidbey Island's west-side beaches face some of the stiffest winds and highest energy wave action in Puget Sound. Just off West Beach on northern Whidbey Island lies Puget Sound's largest kelp forest. Nearby Smith and Minor islands, part of the San Juan Islands National Wildlife Refuge, are a major sanctuary for marine birds and mammals. The state Department of Natural Resources has designated this area the Smith and Minor Islands Aquatic Reserve.
In the 19th century tall ships rode the winds into Admiralty Inlet and Puget Sound. Today, ferry boats from Port Townsend battle tricky long-shore currents to harbor at Keystone.
Salmon follow the oxygen-rich Whidbey shore as they migrate to sea and back. Sport-fishers intercept them from beach
and boats. Orcas, gray whales, sea lions, birds and geoducks use the beaches, marine waters and tidelands of Admiralty Inlet. Cruise ships, container vessels, oil barges and nuclear submarines pass above.
Small estuaries, lagoons and creek mouths offer young salmon a place to rest and avoid predators. Eelgrass beds provide additional shelter and spawning habitat for the herring they eat. Glacial bluffs shed earth to the beaches below, replenishing egg-laying gravels for two other forage fish the salmon love -- sand lance and surf smelt.
In addition to natural riches this beautiful shore is rich in history as well. British explorer, Captain George Vancouver of the HMS Discovery, named the bluff at Admiralty Head in 1792 in honor of the British Lords of the Admiralty. The US government built a lighthouse here in 1861 and later a coastal defense installation, Fort Casey, that is now a state park.
Admiralty Inlet Marine Stewardship Area spans the breadth, depth and length of Island County waters west of Whidbey Island from Deception Pass in the north to Possession Point in the south.