Boating in Blaine, Drayton Harbor, WA Map View
Blaine Harbor has berths for about 400 boats; 200 additional berths are being planned by the Port of Bellingham. Gasoline, diesel fuel, electricity, water, ice, launching ramp, dry storage facilities, marine supplies, and pump-out facility are available in the harbor. A repair yard with a marine railway that can handle vessels to 300 tons, 80 feet long, or 21 feet wide is also available; hull repairs can be made. A harbormaster is on duty in the harbor. Blaine is a customs port of entry.
Navigation:
Click the “Map View” button above to see a chart of this harbor.
Semiahmoo Bay has its entrance between Birch Point and Kwomais Point, about 5 miles NNW. It is connected with Drayton Harbor by a narrow channel. The E part of the bay is shoal with extensive sand flats in the SE part. Anchorage may be had in the bay in 3½ to 9 fathoms on the NW side of Semiahmoo Spit, affording protection from S and SE storms.
Drayton Harbor is a small cove formed by Semiahmoo Spit, the extension of a sandspit N of Birch Point. It is about 2 miles long, but flats that bare at low water occupy a large area in the E and S parts of the harbor. A light and a buoy about 700 yards to the WSW are near the N end of the extensive sand flats off the NW side of Semiahmoo Spit.
The channel from Semiahmoo Bay to the cannery wharf on Semiahmoo Spit and to Blaine Harbor, E of the cannery wharf, has a controlling depth of about 21 feet; greater depths are possible with local knowledge. The 15-foot spot about 130 yards N of the cannery wharf, and the 9-foot spot about 300 yards E of the E end of the wharf should be avoided.
Blaine Harbor, at Blaine, is a large and well-equipped small-boat basin near the entrance on the N shore of Drayton Harbor. The harbor is an active fishing center operated by the Port of Bellingham. A light marks the outer end of the breakwater that protects the basin on the S side. In 1981, depths through the entrance and in the basin were 11 feet except for shoaling along the edges.