As the Elliott Bay Water Taxi gears up to start the 2008 season this Sunday, one of the two businesses that share Seacrest Boathouse/Pier with the EBWT is gearing up for a double expansion that we’re telling you about today in honor of Earth Day: West Seattle is home to a fair amount of “green” businesses, but you can’t get too much greener than human-powered recreation. Alki Kayak Tours is open now for the season and expanding this year in two ways; we sat down with owner Greg Whittaker (pictured above) to talk about the expansion and about how far the business has come since its first season (this is season number four):

When Whittaker and wife Kara opened Alki Kayak Tours, he says, he led all three daily tours, and admits that was a little intense. Now he has a seasonal staff of 12 people, which is helping facilitate the first major expansion: Starting this season, they’re offering overnight tours to Blake Island on weekends.

“We’re getting a dedicated fleet for overnight tours,” Whittaker explains — three additional double kayaks, to add to the previous fleet of six doubles and a triple (plus a few singles that are available for experienced kayakers to rent). He intends to keep the overnight trips fairly small, with those new kayaks – built in Redmond this spring especially for Alki Kayak Tours and expected to be ready early next month, in time for the first trip, which is already booked – holding six people.

Whittaker says the rate for the overnight tours will be $199/person, which includes dinner the first night and breakfast the first day. It generally takes less than 2 hours to paddle to Blake Island, he says — especially if they launch from Lowman Beach or Cove Park — and when the kayakers arrive at the camping site on the northwest side of the island, they’ll get plenty of free time to explore the island, by land or by sea. Alki Kayak Tours is also talking with another West Seattle-based business, Tillicum Village, about possible synergies with the Blake Island tours and the T-Village salmon-dinner shows.

Second part of the Alki Kayak Tours expansion: Becoming a dealer for in-line skates. They’ve been renting them for a while (along with bicycles), but now they’ve obtained dealership rights for the K2 and Rollerblade lines. He’s planning to sell them online as well as in person.

Since the kayaking business seems like a natural for water-surrounded West Seattle, it’s hard to believe this is only the fourth season for Whittaker’s business. He used to be a guide in the San Juans, then went into the corporate world for a while, where, he says, “I learned all the corporate stuff that it takes to run a business … then we saw a niche and filled it — the only saltwater naturalist-led tours in Seattle; everybody else is on the lakes.”

If you think it’s largely a tourist-driven business, think again; Whittaker says 60 percent of their clients are from the Puget Sound area, and of the visitors who make up the remainder, many of them take the tours while here visiting friends and relatives. He does work with the concierges at the downtown hotels, to make sure tourists are aware of what’s offered on this side of the bay.

He’s involved in non-business projects as well, in particular, serving on the Governor’s Oil Spill Advisory Council: “It’s important to keep giving back to the community,” he notes.

You can find out more about Alki Kayak Tours – including photo and video links – on their website. In addition to the upcoming in-line-skate dealerships, they also sell kayaks; they’ve got a demonstration day coming up on June 21st, 9 am-4 pm.