San Jaun Islands - March 2006

My Friend Julie and I spent the day up in the San Jaun Islands yesterday (Sunday). It was alot of fun. The weather turned out to be very nice as well. We were able to get an early start but almost missed the 8:00 a.m. Boat from Anacortes, WA thanks to me.

I had gone out with a friend the night before and stayed out a bit late and had a little more to drink than I'm used to. But we made good time driving and litterally drove right on the boat and with in two minutes we were moving.

Although, we were both dying for a good cup of coffee and since all the labor screw ups on the Washington state ferries there is no food service any longer. So there was no coffee available on board the boats. We had to wait until we got to East Sound on Orcas to go to a coffee shop and get some Island swill !

The Washington State Ferries leave from Anacortes, Washington and go to Shaw, Lopez, Orcas and San Jaun Islands. Our first destination was Orcas Island. Julie's mother has some property on the eastern side of Orcas Island with a trailer. She wanted to check the trailor to make sure that it had been surviving the wet winter storms we'd been having. Julie's Mother had also had a septic system put in for an eventual house or structure on the property. We checked the trailer and it was fine, took some pictures walked around with Julie's dog Jesse and then decided to take the inter-island ferry over to Friday Harbor on San Jaun Island.

When we got over to Friday Harbor we drove around and Julie showed me where she had lived when she had been up on San Jaun Island as a Deputy Sherriff for Island County. She's now taking a sebatical from Law Enforcement and is enjoying life with the simple pleasures of taking a day trip up to the San Jauns with an old geezer like me. We ended up visiting with one of her friends that lives up on the island and throwing the ball for the dogs and then we drove over to the North side of San Jaun Island to Roche Harbor and had lunch.

After leaving Roche harbor we drove around the Island and looked at all the views that we could get. We were able to see Victoria, BC Canada from one end of the island. The weather was kind of stormy but with some sunny breaks from time to time. Very windy as usual. After we drove around the island we ended up back in Friday Harbor and walked around looking at all the shops and galleries. We had to wait awhile for the 4:00 pm ferry back to Anacortes. Once on the boat we had to make one stop at Shaw Island and then it was about 45 minute trip back to the mainland.