I live in the DC suburbs (and before you ask, my wife would kill me if another boat showed up so no storage for you at my place, sorry) and your commute does not have to be bad or in the car. The MARC train system connects up to the subways and you can do all your commuting with a combination of walking and someone else driving for less than the cost of the gas and parking. So there's plenty of opportunity for renting a house with a garage if you want.

In the meantime, there are also some really wonderful paddling opportunities in the DC area, ranging from quiet hidden wild rice marshes, to creeks and small rivers up to the Potomac and Chesapeake Bay.

If you google "dc boating clubs" you'll get a respectable list. I've met folks from the DC Strokes Rowing club while paddling the Anacostia river and they seemed really nice. They've got some fun Asian style boats painted to look like giant carp, very festive. I've also seen the Thompson Boat Center on the Potomac. They're a good place to put in. I don't know what either group does for storage.

There's also the boneyard behind CLC, maybe you can arrange something with them, though that'd be outdoor storage.

Welcome to the area, see you on the water, maybe.

Laszlo

These two places on the Potomac in Georgetown might work.

1. Thompson Boat House (http://www.thompsonboatcenter.com/) has inside rack storage for kayaks and shells.  They had a waiting list when I last checked about 3-4 years ago.

2. There's a new place this year where Jack's Boathouse was, now (http://keybridgeboathouse.com/).  I stored my boat at Jack's.  They had outside racks people could put their canoes/kayaks/paddleboards on.  Jack's charged me $50/month back in 2010 when I still had my boat.  I don't know what the new operators do.

I don't know of any place on the Anacostia River where you can keep a kayak. There are some marinas on the north side, I just don't know anything about them, other than they have mostly in-water powerboats.  You might look at google maps satellite.  The Anacostia Community Boathouse is a local center for serious rowing but I never saw private boats when I volunteered there, just the various club shells.  There is supposed to be a brand new kayak rental place on the Anacostia by Nationals Stadium, but I have no personal knowledge of it yet (brand new).

There's nothing at all on the Washington Channel for small craft. 

Out of the water storage around DC is very hard to find.  You also cannot launch anything (even your own body) from any NPS land so most of Potomac waterfront is either off limits or inaccessible.  Jack's used to let people carry their own boats down to the dock, I hope the new operators still do, but you'll have a very hard time finding parking (metered at high rates) within striking distance of the place on a weekend.

Washington Sailing Marina is south of D.C. in Arlington. They have dryland storage for sailboats.  I don't know what they do or don't do with kayaks. They wouldn't let me keep my rowboat there because it didn't have a sail. I said I'd nail a 2x4 mast onto it, and they said that would be o.k. then I could store it there--but I didn't.

There is a place on the Potomac just north of Reagan National Airport that has a launch ramp you can use.

Check out the link below.  This club is just beyond the Key Bridge.  The Potomac River at this point is one of the most beautiful urban rivers in the country.  Gravelly Point north of the airport mentioned in the message above is used mainly by motormotors.  The concrete launch ramps are into deep water which may not be good for you, but the place is often not busy and its free!  The comment about the lack of kayak put-in places in unfortunately correct.  Also, check out the Anacostia around Bladensburg Maryland. 

www.washingtoncanoeclub.org/‎

i live in the dc area....and it has an incredibly active and diverse kayaking community.  but i have a car and a garage where i keep my boat. 

to the extent that you can get your boat on a car.....my view is there are lots of convenient put-ins within a short drive.  however, except for the clubs that are mentioned above on the DC waterfront, you need to get to the other side of the river.....which is not far....just not accessable without putting the boat on a car.

i would recommend that you also go to meetup.com and look at the washington kayak club and chesapeake kayak adventures.  between these two groups there are often 5 to 10 group opportunities every week in the greater DC area.   it would be a good place to network.

you might also try putting a call into Potomac Paddle Sport - which is in Rockville (about 10 miles up from DC.  it is one of the largest kayak stores serving the DC region.  i think they might have storage there.  but you would have to drive up there to pick up your boat.

Thanks everyone for the ideas!  I'm getting in touch with all of those boat clubs to see about storage and I really hope to get involved with paddling groups once I move out there.  How late does the paddling season go usually?  I mean I know I could go out in January if I had a drysuit, but I had enough cold weather time on the water doing intercollegiate sailing in March in New England.

Welcome to D.C.

Everyone's "cold" varies, but water temps here in the city are 60+ (up into the 90s) from April through October.  So looks like you have about 2 months this year if 60 is your line.  We can get ice on the river during a good winter cold snap.

 


Do you know where you'll be living?  It will make a big difference in where you might want to store your boat.  This is a city where driving is not an easy thing to do, and it doesn't go as fast as it can outside major cities.  Think 25-30 MPH speed limit, speed cameras, red-light cameras, and a traffic light or stop sign every 0.1 miles.  So for example, I live right in the middle of the city and I drove to check out Potomac Paddle Sport last weekend on @hspira recommendation.  It took me 30 minutes in just about ideal traffic conditions.  That means I would spend 2 hours of driving to get my boat and drop it back if I stored it there and wanted to use it on the river near my apartment.  I kept my boat on the river at Jack's (R.I.P.) and could ride my bicycle there in 15-20 minutes (no parking problems either): I thought that was terrific.  If you are going to live farther out from downtown, then as the others noted above, you have more storage choices and easier drives to more paddle spots (but you give up the great things about living in Washington and your commute to work might stink).

m.c. makes good points, and there's ways around those traffic problems and the cold. I've paddled every month of the year here without a drysuit, but in winters I stick to the Patuxent. It's a much smaller river than the Potomac so the conditions don't really get wild. In addition, there are lots of incredibly beautiful areas where the water is only a couple of feet deep, so if I would somehow manage to capsize, all I'd have to do is stand up and wade to shore. Winter is also nice in that the plague of jetskis is gone, as are the motorboats.

As far as the traffic goes, dawn Sunday is your friend. The streets are wide open. You still have the lights and such, but there's no congestion.

The waters are empty except for a few fishermen and they're not roaring around kicking up wakes. Launch ramps are deserted so there's no lines or waiting for the wooden boat effect ("is that a wooden boat", "you built that?", "was it a kit", "how much to build me one", etc.). The only real problem is that on the way home you may get caught in church traffic, which can be pretty fierce near the suburban megachurches.

Laszlo

   Store at MIdland RV and Boat Storage. This is too late reply to your post.