Today/tonight: Night Out signups; Duwamish kayaking; book talk

| Environment | WS culture/arts

DEADLINE TO SIGN UP FOR NIGHT OUT: Tomorrow night, you can close your (non-arterial) street and have a neighborhood block party to celebrate Night Out – provided you sign up by 9 am today (extended from last Friday). Here’s where to do it online. (And if you wouldn’t mind us dropping in for a photo or two, e-mail us your Night Out party location – editor@westseattleblog.com.)

DUWAMISH KAYAK TOURS: Tonight’s the next in a series of twice-monthly summertime kayak tours of the Duwamish River, presented by the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition, Alki Kayak Tours and the Seattle Aquarium Society. 6-8:30 pm, leaving from South Park, find out how to sign up here.

BOOK GROUP: Been thinking about that classic summer pastime, reading? Southwest Library‘s Evening Book Group meets tonight, 6:45, to take a look at this month’s book, “Behind the Scenes at the Museum” by Kate Atkinson – more info here.

Jason August 3, 2009 (10:29 am)

Just wanted to pass along some information to paddlers everywhere.

NOAA has recently proposed to close the west side of San Juan Island to kayakers. If you are not familiar with San Juan Island the one place that commercial and public kayakers can safely launch in in the middle of the proposed closure zone.

NOAA is using science that is inconclusive to pass regulations that will have a huge effect on our local economy and for all paddlers who desire the freedom to paddle the beautiful shoreline.

I have more detailed information on my blog
http://seayakwc.blogspot.com/

Pleas visit and follow the links to NOAAs proposal and to email address there to make a public comment.

Please help keep our shoreline open.

Melissa August 3, 2009 (1:50 pm)

Here’s a link to a PI article on the topic:
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/408517_ORCAS28.html

It certainly does seem odd that there’s an exception for commercial fishing vessels and cargo ships in established shipping lanes. Of all of the disturbances to orcas, I’d think that those two would be far greater than kayaks. So it’s not the no-go zone that I’d oppose, but that non-motorized boats are included in it and quite a few motorized vessels are not.

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