On Washington State’s Protection Island, Marty Bluewater stands alone. A colony of gulls swoop and squawk around the sandy bluffs where he looks out to the sea, watching tufted puffins bob in the water in search of fish to feed their young. His morning music is the sound of waves crashing onto the beach below, where harbor seals stretch out under the sun. Bluewater is the only human resident of the roughly 400-acre island, which became a wildlife refuge in the 1980s. He says living here has been nothing short…
