Quietly, deliberately, with little fanfare or proclamation, a rowing movement is growing out on Sequim Bay.

Unless you’re up at 6 a.m., live nearby and happened to be looking across the bay, Sequim resident Bob Mccauley notes, you probably didn’t notice.

More than a dozen area retirees, semi-retirees and working professionals have been taking advantage of some pristine conditions on the bay to learn the sport, drawn to rowing’s full-body, low-impact exercise — plus all the perks of the area’s solitude.

“It was something that I wanted to do (but) I was pretty sure the window of opportunity had closed in my life,” Jean Hessels-Petit says.

“The hardest part was getting in and out of the boat,” she says. “It’s gotten easier.”

The movement of sorts started in the fall of 2015 when Sequim Bay Yacht Club members looked to increase membership by exploring the idea of adding a rowing group by offering a Learn to Row day.

Expectations were met, then blown away, when about 50 interested people, many of them undisciplined in all things rowing, signed up.

“That’s when we knew we had some interest,” Dennis Miller, rowing instructor and coordinator, said.

“We just kind of opened the door and they shoved the door wide open,” rower Ted Shanks said.

After that, a core group of 14 individuals, seven of them already yacht club members, took their burgeoning passion for rowing further and started a morning group in May.

Early workouts

“This is an activity that’s low impact … but it’s a full-body workout,” Miller says. “It’s not stressing anything. You are using your quads; your arms are secondary.”

Most of those folks didn’t have a clue about how to row, says Mccauley, but that hardly stopped the group from growing. By summer’s end there were two morning sessions, one at about 6:45 a.m. and another after 8 a.m., going six days per week.

Using a simple online sign-in sheet, rowers picked spots for one of four positions or coxswain, with a sixth person following in what’s called a launch boat, a powerboat that follows the crew for safety purposes.

“There are only a couple of days a week it doesn’t fill up,” Miller says.

Shanks is a former Sequim Bay Yacht Club commodore who now serves as vice commodore. A club member since 2000, he says there seems to be a conception out there that yacht club members are high-brow “ascot tie” kinds of folks.

“We don’t do that here in Sequim,” Shanks says. “(We are) boat people.”

A retired pilot, Shanks hit the water often on his powerboat but found the transition to rowing much to his liking.

“(The power boat) feels as big as a motor home; this is a totally different experience,” Shanks says. “The perspective is totally different.

“There’s a camaraderie and sort of a social aspect,” he says, adding, “It sure it is pretty.”

The yacht club is quite busy throughout the year, Shanks says, with sailboat races to powerboat cruising and the like, but, he notes, “If you don’t expand the scope of your clientele, you’re just going to fade into zero.”

Hence, the rowing program. Shanks says the sport somewhat surprisingly appeals to middle-aged working professionals — doctors, lawyers, clergy, etc. — many of whom get their rowing in before heading off to the office.

“We found (the group) attracted the working professional,” Miller says. For people with hectic lives, “this is calming. They can count on it. They feel real balanced when they come out and row. Rowing takes all your concentration. It’s kind of like meditation — a Zen-like experience.”

Says Shanks, “These people are interested in the physical fitness part of it, the same kind of people people who do jogging, bicycle racing.”

Out on the bay

It’s a crisp fall morning and six bodies methodically prep their racing boat for a morning row as the day breaks.

Most of the time, says Miller, “you won’t see a boat out here.

“No place better than Sequim Bay.”

Hessels-Petit and her husband Rudy have been boat owners since about 1999 and Sequim Bay Yacht Club members since 2005. While she grew up in Port Angeles and spent summer days on Lake Crescent, people using the lake were predominantly water skiing and using motor boats.

Hessels-Petit says the challenge of rowing became apparent early on.

“For us together, it was just getting the timing. It was really ragged, real rocky on the boat,” she says. “It’s been interesting: some have more difficulty than others. Over time, it’s really evened out.”

Hessels-Petit says she enjoys the peacefulness of the sport and friendliness of her fellow rowers.

“People are so supportive and help each other out,” she says. “There’s a lot of laughing.”

While other nearby waterways, particularly near Port Townsend but also true out on Ediz Hook, can be rough, Sequim Bay is often glassy — perfect for a row.

“Travis Spit totally protects us,” Miller says, motoring the launch boat a few dozen yards while the five-person crew gets into their routine.

“She’s in control of the boat,” Miller says of Carolyn DeSalvo, who’s taken the role of coxswain for the morning. “She tells them what strokes to take and who’s doing what.”

The crew is in an Odyssey, a “quad” craft good for training, Miller says, because it’s wide and stable. Plus, with the water as calm as it is, beginners can “work on perfecting their stroke and getting their form down,” he says.

“We really do stress safety,” Miller says. Everyone wears a personal flotation device — in this case, a small pouch they can wear around their waists — and the launch boat is within 100 yards of the boat at all times.

Going bigger

As the days get shorter, the opportunity for daylight rowing also closes, so the rowing group has trimmed its rowing offerings to once per morning.

But thanks to a donation from a Port Townsend rowing group, Sequim Bay’s rowers have a second four-person boat — this one a racer — and has received a donation of a single boat and possibly a fourth is on the way, Miller says.

The group didn’t exactly advertise itself initially with just one boat, Miller says, but now there’s a bit of room to expand.

This fall, a new group of 10-12 people is starting a six-week Learn to Row Program. Provided they pass a float test and have some swimming skills, they move on to learning the basics of rowing.

“The word is getting out,” Shanks says.

Reach the Sequim Bay Yacht Club at 683-1338.

Reach Sequim Gazette editor Michael Dashiell at editor@sequimgazette.com.