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Hello Friends and Family! We are finally sending you another update on our travels and our whereabouts. It has taken us some time to build up our courage enough to try e-mailing again. Hotmail and Yahoo gave us so much trouble last time, that they scared us away for a while. You would think two people who were computer professionals could figure this stuff out! Pathetic! Here is a summary of all the places we have been since we last wrote to you, up until today. We have also included the latitude and longitude of each of these places for those of you who are tracing our journeys on a wall map or an atlas.
May 9 - Eagle Harbor, Bainbridge Island, WA May 10 - Port Hadlock, WA May 11 - Mackaye Bay, Lopez Island, WA - 48.26.5 North, 122.54.0 West May 12 - Turn Island, WA - 48.32.06 North, 122.58.41 West May 13 - Turn Island, WA May 14 - Deer Harbor, Orcas Island, WA - 48.37.09 North, 123.00.24 West May 15 - Deer Harbor, Orcas Island, WA May 16 - Deer Harbor, Orcas Island, WA May 17 - Jones Island, WA - 48.36.5 North, 123.03 West May 18 - Echo Bay, Sucia Island, WA - 48.46.0 North, 122.53.5 West May 19 - Echo Bay, Sucia Island, WA May 20 - Echo Bay, Sucia Island, WA May 21 - Prevost Harbor, Stuart Island, WA - 48.40.72 North, 123.11.92 West May 22 - Sidney, B.C., Canada -48.39.25 North, 123.23.65 West May 23 - Sidney, B.C, Canada May 24 - Sidney Island Provincial Park, B.C., Canada - 48.38.78 North, 123.20.53 West The summary of the past two weeks adventures is that we have been taking our time lollygaging around the San Juan Islands. Both of the other two times we have visited the San Juans, we were in such a rush that we didn't get to see everything we wanted to see. Now we really feel like we've had some good, quality time in the San Juans. We have also been using this time to adjust to our new cruising lifestyle. We have found that it is very different from living aboard in dock. It has been keeping us on our toes and we have had a few learning experiences! But we are adjusting well and are now very excited to be in Canada, Eh! We have never been up here before, so it's all new sights and experiences from here on out. We are planning to pick up our friends Eric and Lesley for a week of cruising in the Gulf Islands. After that we will be sailing over to see Princess Louisa Inlet and then Desolation Sound. We are not sure how soon we will be able to find internet connectivity again, so please don't worry if you don't hear from us for a while. We will write as soon as we can. Last time we wrote, we were in Eagle Harbor on Bainbridge Island in Washington. We stayed there one more day, visiting our friends Jackie and Jonathan. Then we continued north to Port Hadlock. We are glad that we stayed there because we found a great little restaurant on the south shore named "Ajax". We went to shore for a walk and saw this little restaurant full of people wearing crazy freakish hats. It was way too interesting to pass up, so we went in and had some marionberry pie. There was a great couple singing duets and playing guitars and harmonicas on the little stage in the restaurant. They both had great singing voices and it was a pleasure to listen to them. We found out that everyone was wearing crazy hats because Ajax has hats hanging all over the walls. They encourage their customers to pick one out and wear it while they dine. Rob and I were already wearing crazy hats, so we fit right in! The next day we had a great sail across the Strait of Juan De Fuca. We anchored up in Mackaye Bay on Lopez Island in the San Juans. We had a great walk on shore that evening before sunset, but that night, it kicked up a big westerly and we were moving and grooving all night. Prior to that, we were planning to stay there another night and take a bike ride around Lopez Island. But due to the wind that wouldn't let up, we moved on the next day. Our next stop was Turn Island, which is right next to San Juan. The whole little island is a state park and it has a couple of mooring buoys. We originally wanted to go to Friday Harbor, but we went in and couldn't find a suitable anchorage between all the docks and private mooring buoys in there. So we picked up a mooring buoy at Turn Island. We had a great time walking all around the island. It was a good, calm spot. The next day, we dinghied our bikes over to San Juan for a bike ride. We landed our dinghy at what we thought was a public shore, but it turns out it was private property. Fortunately, the lady who owned it was very nice and said we could leave our dinghy there while we went for a ride. She did say that we were lucky we didn't catch her in the nude, because she often sits outside on her deck without any clothes on. Foosh! That would be chilly! We biked to Friday Harbor, up to Roche Harbor and then down the West side of the Island and back to where we left the dinghy. Along the way, we stopped at English Camp and got a little history lesson on the Pig Wars. This was the almost but not quite war between Canada (Great Britain) and the US over who owned San Juan Island. Both British and US forces occupied San Juan for 12 years while they figured out who should own it. Finally they asked the German Kaiser to decide and he favored the US in the decision. It was called the pig wars, because the issue was brought to a head when a US citizen on San Juan Island shot a pig that belonged to the Hudson Bay Company because it was trespassing on his land. Quite interesting history. We tried to see the 1 pod of Orca Whales that the Forest Rangers said were here already. We went to Lime Kiln park for a view, but we just weren't lucky enough to see any whales :-( Following our bike ride we loaded our biked into our dinghy and set off rowing from San Juan Island to Turn Island, where our boat was located. As we set off, we had an audience of 1 local on the beach who was really getting a kick out of the sight of us rowing a dinghy full of us, two bikes and all our bike bags. Unfortunately for us, just as we got close to Turn Island, we encountered a very strong current, not in our favor. We struggled and cussed and sweated and finally made it through the current. But we had to land on Turn Island for a rest so we could gain enough energy to make it out to our boat. We went up on shore and left our dinghy down by the waters edge. Whoa boy, big mistake. A few minutes after we arrived, the Friday Harbor Ferry went by. As we stood watching, it's wake came crashing into the shore of Turn Island. I went running down to grab the dinghy so it wouldn't wash away out to sea. Much to my surprise, as I was dragging it up on to shore, the wake from ferry came over the stern of the dinghy several times and drenched everything inside which included all of our bike bags. Unfortunately, this caused a casualty. OUr much prized, Intel digital camera was soaked and rendered totally inoperable. Not good! That was a sad ending to our otherwise wonderful day. Lesson learned: keep the camera in a plastic, zip lock bage at all times and always pull the dinghy far enough one shore that a passing wake won't wash over the stern. So now you know why we haven't posted any pictures to the internet yet. But never fear, my cousin George has saved the day! He is sending us his digital camera that he didn't want anymore. Very nice of him! Hopefully soon, we will have some pictures posted. Our next big adventures were on Orcas Island. We anchored in Deer Harbor. We spent 1 day there emptying and refilling our water tanks. Now you probably think that's a wierd thing to do, and you are correct. What happened is that we have a rain catcher that catches rain on our deck. Well we had some salt water splashes from waves on our deck and the salt water got into the rain catcher. Normally that wouldn't be a bad thing because we have a separate rain catcher tank. But we had it set to go straight to our main water tanks and we had some very salty water. No problem, we got it fixed. Lesson learned: never, never take rain water directly into the main tanks! See, we're learning! Also on Orcas Island, we rode our bikes from Deer Harbor to Moran State Park. We saw several Deer and Bald Eagles along the way. At Moran State Park we hiked to the top of Mt Constitution, which is the highest point in all the San Juans at ~2,400 feet. It was a really, really cold day, with a polar ice cap breeze, but it was clear and we had a great view from the top of Mt Constitution. We could see all the San Juan Islands, Bellingham, Anacortes, some of the Olympics, Mt. Baker and some of the Gulf Islands. If you ever get a chance to hike up Mt Constitution, I highly recommend it. It is just absolutely gorgeous. From Deer Harbor, we went to Jones Island. Jones Island is just about 1 mile Southwest of Orcas. The whole island is a state park. We found a great mooring buoy on the South side of the island and tied up, just in time to see a couple having their wedding onshore. That was pretty cool. It must have been difficult logistics for them to get all their friends and family to the island because there is no ferry service to it. I was curious how they made it all work, but we weren't able to catch up with them to ask them about it. We hiked all around Jones Island and saw some beautiful scenery. After Jones Island, we spent three days at Sucia. Sucia is our favorite island in the San Juans. In the two previous times we had visited Sucia we didn't have enough time to hike all of the trails. Sucia is a pretty good size island and all of it is state park, so there are a ton of trails to hike. This time we were able to hike them all. We hiked the southern half one day and the northern half the other day. If you haven't ever been to Sucia, you really should go. There is an abundance of wildlife and incredible views from all sides of the island. While we were there we saw 5 bald eagles soaring above the island. That's the most we've ever seen together at one time. There are also a ton of purple, pink and orange starfish. Our next stop was Stuart Island. We had never been there before and we're glad we didn't miss it this time. Most of the island is private, but there is a sizeable state park with two huge bays full of mooring buoys for pleasure boaters. While we were there we walked on the 1 county road on the island to the old one room schoolhouse. They have a museum there that has displays on the history of the island and the school. There were pictures of many of the teachers who had taught in the one room schoolhouse. There were also stories about some of them. ONe of the teachers was attacked by a buck when she was walking home from school. She fought him off by choking him! He eventually took off, but later the islanders found him, shot him and gave him to the schoolteacher for dinner! In addition to history lessons about the island, there was information about the current population. Apparently there are 200 property owners on the island, but only 28 people lived on the island year-round last year. There are 5 students enrolled in the Stuart Island K-8 school. The new schoolhouse is right next to the one room schoolhouse and is much bigger. It even has satellite internet connection! There are no phone lines on the island and no electricity. Most of the islanders have some kind of generator and if they use a phone, they use a cel phone. The other cool thing we saw at Stuart Island was the Turn Point Light house. We had a great view of Haro Strait and Boundary Strait from there. We could see over into Canada, our next destination! But again, we didn't see any whales. Now we are in Sidney, B.C, Canada. Can you believe they really let us two into Canada? Since we arrived here, we have taken a bike ride down to Victoria to meet up with our friends Melissa and Jason who are here for the long weekend. We also have spent a day over at Sidney Island Provincial Park. Today our friends Lesley and Eric will arrive via the ferry from Anacortes and we will begin our tour of the Gulf Islands. We hope all is going well with all of you. We are missing you and thinking about you. Love, Della and Rob
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