DILETTANTE PADDLER

Enatai Beach Park

Bellevue, WA

Trips

Nestled under I-90 in the southwest corner of Bellevue, Enatai Beach park is a nice little launching spot. If you leave the park to the right, you head under the freeway and up the Lake Washington Coast. Heading to the left, however, will quickly take you to the mouth of the Mercer Slough, which is a fun little paddle almost all the way to downtown Bellevue. The slough forms a loop at the end, but it's only really passable in the early months of the season. After that it tends to get choked with weeds.

There's also a kayak/canoe/etc. rental stand there, in case you're going with someone who doesn't have their own boat (or you need one yourself).

Pros: Nice area to launch kayaks and other small boats. Close to the I-90 offramp. A fair amount of parking, some of which is shaded by the freeway. Close to the mouth of Mercer Slough. The rental stand is useful if you need an extra boat.

Cons: The parking fills up quickly even during the week. The park itself is not exactly appealing under the overpass, and it makes for a loud start to your paddle.

Overall: A nice change of pace launch site, but I don't think it'll become one of my usual spots.

8/29/17

Back before I got my own kayak, I rented one at the shop in this park once or twice. So I was familiar with the terrain when I set off. Lake Washington was pretty choppy, so I headed to the slough with the intention of heading over under I-90 after I was done. After I entered the slough, I met up with another kayaker headed in the same direction. He had been planning on doing some photography on the lake, but the chop was pushing his narrow ocean kayak around too much to take any decent pictures. I was once again pleased that I had gotten the solid, stable kayak I did.

The Mercer Slough is a quiet little waterway that goes up through Mercer Slough Nature Park. It has no current to speak of and paddling up it is just as easy as going back. I did note the Sweyolocken Boat Launch as a place that I should check out in the future since it skips the lake and going under I-90 portion of the trip and might be a good spot for beginner paddlers. We saw a couple of herons and plenty of ducks, but no turtles which the other kayaker said he'd seen there in the past. We skipped the turn-off for the loop since he said he'd been there a couple weeks ago and it was impassable because of the weeds.

Eventually we got more or less as far as we could go, met a couple other paddlers and then all turned around and headed back separately. Once I got back to the lake, it was still very choppy and fighting my way against the wind back to the park had tired me out, so I decided to skip the second half of my plan and just head for shore.