Orcas Island Yet Again - Labor Day Weekend

I wanted to take a plane over night. I had never done that before. Unfortunately I don't own an airplane.....yet ! Some day, perhaps. So, Regal Air at Paine Field (PAE) like most FBO's have a minimum hourly charge if you take the plane for more than 5 hours. Generally, if you rent an airplane you only pay for the time that the propeller is spinning. So you want to be efficient with your time. Last Sunday (09-03-06) I reserved an airplane starting at 2:00 pm until 6:00 p.m. Regal Air closed at 6:00 p.m. Which meant that I did not have to have the airplane back until noon the next day (Monday). My total flight time was 1.7. This is better than having to pay for a minmum of 3 hours on Sunday and 3 hours on Monday. that wold have cost a fortune.

So... Jason, Julie and I took off at around 2:00 p.m. It was a very nice flight. Although it was extremely hazy. I wasn't sure why. However, there are a few fires in the mountains but they are pretty far away from Seattle and not to big. But I guess it's possible.

I've known Julie since I was very young. She is my friend Greg's younger sister. I have a blog entry from Monday, March 06, 2006 when Julie and I drove up to Orcas, or at least to Anacortes and then took the ferry. I had called her to invite her to fly up to Orcas Island because I had been promising her a flight as well as the fact that her mother Terri has property on Orcas. We had always gone up there as kids. Anyway, Julie originally said no because she did not have anyone to take care of her dog. Especially since we were all going to stay the night on the Island. Jason and I would camp under the airplane and Julie would stay with her mother at the property.

So then she was finally able to get Greg to take her dog up to the island in his truck and he would meet us up there later in the afternoon. Then both Greg and Julie would stay with their mom.

As Kids, Greg and I would always swim at Cascade Lake (Orcas Island). It's a really beautiful lake. Since we had a nice summer the lake was not cold at all. Our tradition was to walk around to the opposite side of the lake from the swimming area and jump off the cliffs and swing on the rope swing. The lake is very deep around the cliffs. I have to admit that I was a bit hesitant at 41 years old to jump off a cliff about 40 feet high. Greg was the smart one. He had shoes on. I was in my bare feet. But Greg looked over the edge for about 10 seconds and stepped back and then simply jumped. I, on the other hand, looked over the edge and waited about 3-4 minutes and then finally jumped. Jason decided to climb down to a lower edge and jump. He was probably smart. I smacked the bottom of my feet. Not to bad...but it still hurt. So we swam back to the tree which is about 20 feet or so above the water and stick out over the water a good 5-6 feet. I got up there and dove. I had not dove from that hight in a very long time.

Anyway....what was cool is that Jason, Julie and I flew up to the Island. Greg met us up there and thier mother only thought that Jason and I were coming up for dinner She did not know that Greg and Julie would also be there. So when Greg picked us up in town and drove us out to Cascade lake, I called Teri (thier mother) and told her that Jason and I had hitched a ride to the lake to go swimming and would meet her there. She had no idea that Greg and Julie were going to be there. When she finally got there and Jason and I told her that we were going swimming she was worried that we would not make our 6:00 pm dinner reservation. Little did she know that Julie had change the reservation to 7:00 p.m. This gave us plenty of time to swim. Jason and I went to change into our swim suits, as we went back to leave our belongings with Teri, Greg and Julie came back with us and suprised Teri. She was completely caught off guard. She was so happy that we were all there and we all able to enjoy the evening.

So after swimming we drove back into East Sound and were fortunate that our timing was good and only had to wait about 15 minutes. After we were sat at our table we were all dying for a margarita. Bilbo's Festivo has great margaritas. And we were all very hungry. So the Chips were devastated. Not to mention they have great salsa. So we all sat there and talked about everything under the sun. I've known Greg, Julie and Terri all my life so they are very much like family to me. It was really great to spend time with them in such a relaxed setting. We had not all been up on the island together in a very long time and in this day and age that is an accomplishment.

After we relaxed and ate our dinner, Greg drove Jason and I back to the Airport and got the tent ready to call it a night. It was dark and we basically were very tired. We decided to take a walk. We walked down to the North end of the airport along the taxi way. It was about 10:00 p.m so there was virtually no traffic arriving or departing. We could see clear up into Vancouver, Canada. The stars were out, a great moon and it wasn't too cold. Pretty good combination for being up in the San Jaun Islands.

I had Informed Julie that it would be best to be back to the airport at or before 9:00 a.m. She arrived early and we were off the ground by 9:00 a.m. As we got up to about 1,500 feet we could see that there were low clouds as far as we could see. I had not really planned for this. The FBO at the airport was not open to be able to check the weather. The conditions at the aiport were clear. There was no fog. We had two options at this point. Since we could see Friday Harbor and it was clear we could go over there and have breakfast and wait for the low clouds to dissapate; or we could turn around and land back at East Sound and wait until there for the low clouds to burn off. We decided to head over to Friday Harbor and have breakfast. we had a great landing at Friday Harbor and then walked into town and had a great breakfast. It always seems like the food is better after flying. Don't know what it is !!

After breakfast we walked over to the Sherrif's office / Courthouse since Julie had been a deputy Sherrif in Rosche Harbor for San Jaun County, she knew everyone up there. So she introduced Jason and I to everyone and I was able to talk to one of the 911 Dispatchers who happen to be a pilot and we checked the weather at Paine Field, Bremerton, Boeing Field, and Port Townsend. All Reported Clear below 12,000 feet. This meant that there should not be any problem getting back to Paine Field. It was pretty much a low fog over the water only. Any Land mass was clear. In any event, I had enough fuel on board that if we got to Paine Field and could not land we had enough fuel to turn around and fly all the way back to East Sound. What a shame it would be if we had to spend more time on Orcas Island.

All in all it was a great over night to Orcas Island. I will definitely be doing this again. I can't do it to often since it is fairly expensive.