On the 6th Abbey and I took the ferry from Anacortes, WA to Orcas Island. It wasn’t Abbey’s first trip on a boat, nor was it her first trip on a ferry, though I think it was her first car ferry. She’s a well-traveled dog. I almost went into shock when the woman told me the ferry was $125. I recovered when she said that was the roundtrip price. Anyways, it was a cloudy, overcast, cool day, but it was one of the few of those we’ve had recently. It did manage to clear up later in the day after we made it to Moran State Park, our home for the next 5 nights. Moran is a beautiful park with many hiking trails and a couple of lakes, but I did have one complaint. The campsites are quite close to each other. Luckily, no one ever took the spot on one side of us and on the other side they set up their tents back in the woods so it wasn’t so bad. Abbey wasn’t crazy about the campground either, because it was quite loud. Orcas is a fairly rural island with lots of farms and it is also quite mountainous. One day I hiked up to the top of Mt. Constitution, the highest point in the San Juans at just over 2400 ft. That may not sound that high, but when you start close to sea level it is a bit of a climb. Unfortunately, when I did it, it was still a bit cloudy so I didn’t get great views of the mountains in the distance. Ironically, I got the best view of Mt. Baker, a glaciated peak just south of the Canadian border, when I went on a kayaking tour. The kayak tour was pretty nice though not nearly as rough as I thought it might be. The one I chose was in the least protected waters, but the water was still bathtub water, except for the temperature. It turns out that the islands are quite well-protected and you don’t get big surf unless there is a big storm I guess. We didn’t see a lot of wildlife, but we did see a seal that came quite close to a couple of the kayaks and a bunch of starfish.
One problem I had on the island was parking. It is quite limited except for in Eastsound, the main village on the island, so I was a bit limited as to where I could go. It kind of reminded me of Ireland with the narrow, winding roads. The other thing about Orcas is that there isn’t a lot of public access to the water. Luckily, the state park had a couple of lakes so I managed to get Abbey in those most mornings and there was a place to get in the sound down in town. While Abbey was entertaining the tourists with her fishing routine one day, I noticed something really strange. Every so often I would see a stream of water shoot out of the ground anywhere from a few inches to a few feet in the air. It seemed to happen close to the water’s edge, but when I dug in the sand and rocks I couldn’t find anything there. Unfortunately, there were no locals around to ask what it was from. Sometimes the squirts would come one right after the other. While I was there I never found out where the water was coming from, but I did eventually solve the mystery later on. Stay tuned.
I think next time I might try San Juan Island. It’s supposed to be more commercial, which is why I stayed away from it, but it is also supposed to have more to do and more public beach access. In any case, I enjoyed my stay on Orcas, though I probably could have cut it short by a day with no real loss. It is a very scenic island and not too built up so it does have its advantages. I’d love to do the San Juans in a sailboat sometime. On the 11th we got up early, took the ferry back to the mainland and headed south to catch another ferry across Puget Sound. In case you haven’t been up this way, northwest Washington has water everywhere. The ferries make getting around a little easier, even though they are pretty expensive if you have an RV. I put my RV in storage in Bremerton, picked up a rental car and headed south to meet up with Mary Beth’s brother Bob, and his kids in San Diego. We’re all spending the week at Bob’s cousin, Andy’s house. It’s a bit of a drive but the kids asked me to come so I couldn’t say no.
