Ko-kwal-alwoot The Maiden of Rosario Beach

Ko-kwal-alwoot Legendary Maiden at Rosario Beach

 With Inga and Sean up north for a visit and a day to ourselves, we four chose to pay a visit to an old friend, Ko-kwal-alwoot, the legendary maiden who left her Swinomish People and married the undersea god of these waters so that the bounty of the sea and forest might perpetually bless her people. The undersea god had withheld all the fish and sustenance within the ocean in order to coerce her parents to let him take Ko-kwal-alwoot as his wife. In return for her hand in marriage, the smitten god of the sea returned the sea waters to their former prosperous fishing and hunting grounds that provided food to the Swinomish.

We have always enjoyed visiting Ko-kwal-alwoot and the beauty that is Rosario Beach on Fidalgo Island. It has been remarked upon that five generations of Cooks-Sunesons have basked in the pleasures where forest and sea meet at Rosario Beach State Park.

The tide was out, leaving the always fascinating tide pools perched in the hollows of ancient rock jutting from the headland. Across the sound the snow-capped peaks of the Olympic Peninsula were rising above the blue waters. 

We hopped and teetered as we stooped to look for marine life in the pools; there were sea anemones stuck in place and if you looked and waited long enough, you could glimpse a tiny purple crab hustling out from under a stone and sliding into a bed of algae. 

Mountains of the Olympic Peninsula rise above the sound

Inspecting the tide pools for marine life

Barnacles shine like stars against black shale while sea anemones look like pimento olives tucked in the tide pool crevasses

A University of Washington Research Vessel passes in front of Deception Island

We stroll above the surf and peer over the cliff to the kelp dancing with the tide below.

 

The loop trail takes over the rocky point and gives us a view of Deception Pass, which beckons us over to another State Park and a chance to walk along the Deception Pass Bridge linking us to Whidbey Island.

On the backside of the headland trail, some say there lives the madman of the medrano. Myabe it's true, maybe not.

Is it a rare sighting of the Madman of the Madrano?