Life On The North Sound

The NSB thinks that the fine folk who check in on it now and then should know what life is actually like on the North Puget Sound. Our life on Whidbey Island is much different from life on most of the mainland… but not in an exciting way.

Life on the North Sound is easier, softer and far more stress-free than most folks’ lives on the mainland. There are several reasons for this… gentle seasonal changes, such as our winter low temp this year being 28, and our high last summer was 78.

Here on the island north of Seattle, the Olympic mountain range to our west acts as an umbrella of sorts, blocking much of the more severe weather that usually blows in from the Pacific. Plus, we’re on the leeward side of our island, which also helps with dodging some of the inclement weather.

And there’s more. A major Naval Air Station is on our island, just 15 miles north of us. We hear them 3-4 days a week, but grew used to their roar in our first year up here, which will be 13 years ago now. Because of that Naval Base, there are quite a few retired Navy personnel in our little town, keeping it quiet and relaxed. As you know, we oldsters stay home a lot more, don’t stay out late at night, and usually drive quiet vehicles . Not including mine…

Partly because we live on Penn cove near the Salish Sea, but mostly because Betty is such a great cook, we have salmon, halibut, shrimp and fresh mussels any time. It’s a culinary luxury that I will never take for granted. Here is her lunch preparation, a shrimp salad –

Mother Nature still rules here, largely thanks to thoughtful folk who drew community limits on growth sometime during the last century. There is hardly any noticeable growth here at all, partly due to the fact that it is, after all, an island. Even so, we have a good nearby grocery store, a medical facility, a decent restaurant and a great pub. Our town is a tourist destination in the summertime, as it’s quaint, it holds some Washington State history, and has a well-known mussel farm just outside of town.

A little history here – Coupeville is one of Washington’s oldest towns and the seat of Island County. Situated on Whidbey Island, at Penn Cove on Saratoga Passage, the town was once the site of three permanent Lower Skagit tribal villages. Named for pioneer Thomas Coupe, it was settled by sea captains and farmers in the 1850s.

Captain Thomas Coupe (c. 1818 – December 27, 1875) was a ship’s captain and early settler of Whidbey Island.

Thomas Coupe was born in New Brunswick, Canada and began going to sea at the age of 12. Coupe sailed the North American Atlantic Coast until the early 1850s. Coupe sailed to the Puget Sound area in 1852 on the sailing vessel Success, a ship in which he was half owner.

Under the Donation Land Claim Act, Coupe established a 320-acre claim in the central part of Whidbey Island upon which the present town of Coupeville now stands.

He is the only captain known to have sailed a square-rigged ship through Deception Pass. The town of Coupeville was named after him; there, he built a house in 1854, from Californian redwood.

The view of the islands in this area, from the air, shows water, water everywhere. It’s hard to drive anywhere here without seeing some spectacular views… the Sound in all its beauty, the Olympic Mountain range to our west, the Cascades Range to our east. Then there is Mount Baker, which can be easily seen from here.

The vibe is fertile for any artist, with the natural beauty all around, and the peace that is needed for nearly any creative endeavor. And like I said, beautiful views everywhere, the kind that remind us how lucky we are to be in this place, the right place for us.

Tulips in the Skagit Valley, just 20 miles East of us on the mainland

But is it, perhaps, too quiet, too peaceful? Oh hell no! Au contraire, it is a beautiful balm for the body and mind, with the time to sit, sometimes for hours, remembering and imagining exotic places and experiences, anything your picturesque imagination can cook up. Our town of Coupeville is a summer tourist destination, and though it’s busy nearly every day of the summer, our street, about 6 blocks south of the downtown area, is always quiet and peaceful. The right words fail me here, so I’ll say it’s simply wonderful… and better than I might have hoped for in this stage of life. The proof of that particular pudding lies in a 45-minute trip to the mainland. One can instantly feel the difference, and see it.

The only way to drive off the island, the bridge over Deception Pass

A 40-minute ferry ride takes us across the Salish Sea to Port Townsend, another tourist destination of 10,502. It’s an artistic community, with great little shops, several excellent restaurants and a huge marina that one can drive through and see every kind of fishing and cruising craft one can imagine. 

We were driving over to Oak Harbor yesterday to do a little shopping, and on the way I realized another reason why our pace here is slower, aside from the fact that so many of us here are retired, and have already hurried our way through most of our lives, and got sick of it. That other reason, though, is our main highway up and down the island. It’s a two-lane road, all the way, and the speed limit is 55. And we all respect it.

At 55 or below, you subconsciously breath and sit back just a little, looking ahead and realizing you’re not going to speed up, you’re not going to pass anyone, you’re going to trudge along behind these other cars, knowing you’ll get where you’re going, and probably more safely. And it’s easy to get used to it… almost relaxing… and, “Look at those bison over there, Marge! How the hell do you get bison on this island?”

The morning view from our front deck

I’m a mountain boy by nature, yet I’ve grown to love the smell of the sea, the cry of the sea gull, the sound of the waves upon a rocky shore. Something inside me wakes up, sees it, hears it, reaches for it, wanting more, then realizing it’s here now, and it’s all yours, if you want it… every day. If your place in this life is like that, then you too are surely in the right place for you. Feels great, doesn’t it? Great, and complete.

Steve Hulse