Great Loop & Cruising Adventure Blog

We left our protected dockage in Anacortes for a five-day tour of the San Juan Islands, which is located in the northwest corner of Washington State. First stop was Friday Harbor - this is one of those boating towns we’ve all heard of. Most wonder where it is and even fewer, east of the great Pacific Northwest, have ever been there.

It is little known that the San Juan Islands enjoy an average of 247 days with sunshine a year and about half the rain, that Seattle receives. It is often referred to as the Banana Belt since it has such a temperate climate. About 90 orca whales (the official Washington State marine mammal - who are on the Endangered Species List), make their home here where many tourists come to view them each season.

After our serpentine eighteen-mile passage to Friday Harbor, we walked the town, enjoyed the sights, and had Happy Hour beer and soft tacos at the oldest Tavern in town. We returned to our boat in a light rain. The combinations of rain and sunshine produced a fabulous 180˚ multicolored rainbow and we could actually see the bottom of the rainbow setting on the dock. Isn’t Mother Nature great?

We woke up Wednesday morning to the sounds of foghorns from the ferryboats that traverse the islands. There was a thick blanket of fog over the whole harbor. Since we found ourselves socked in, we decided to have a slow cup of coffee while watching the fog steadily dissipate and again reveal the most charming of harbors in the San Juans.

What can we say?  How about… a photo is worth a thousand words.

This was home for a few days while Ross and Brooklyn visited with us.

Our son Ross and girlfriend Brooklyn came from Portland, by train, to Anacortes for a short, but very sweet, two day visit. They came to visit with us one more time before we head back to Michigan. We packed a lot in during the short visit. We had really wanted to cruise over to Friday Harbor but weather prevented us from leaving the dock. We had lots of fun though being together, which is the best part of family anyway.

We visited Deception Pass in our truck to take photos, played some games, went to Whidbey Island for lunch and laughed a lot. We feel fortunate to have had this one on one time with both of them, as it may be a while before they visit Michigan, or us on our future travels.

Today we went through Deception Pass. This pass was discovered and named by Vancouver’s exploration team a couple hundred years ago and is revered today, as it was then, as one of North America’s most treacherous passes, with currents that can run as fast as 8 knots. It is recommended that you run the pass at slack tide to reduce your exposure to the whirlpools created by the narrow passage and to have more control of your vessel.

We left from our secluded anchorage at said time and proceeded through with relative ease through the narrow passage traveled by Vancouver, Baker and Whidbey 200 years earlier. A short time after we had traveled through the pass a boat that was coming in as we were heading out radioed the Coat Guard that they had run a ground, so even at slack tide there are no guarantees.

We didn’t get many photos going through so after we got settled in Anacortes we made a road trip over on land to take some incredible photos of the bridge that spans the pass and the pass itself.

Again the weather provided us with a calm partly sunny day to cruise north toward the San Juan Islands. We lowered the hook, just before Deception Pass, at Kiket Bay for the night. Quiet, peaceful with lots of birds and little jumping fish at sunset.

We moved the short distance from Elliot Bay Marina to Bell Harbor Marina right downtown Seattle. Just one night here, our last night on the boat in Seattle. See Mount Rainer on the right only it looks a lot smaller in the photo.

We spent the day walking around town. We visited the Pike Place Market one last time. It was busy on this warm, beautiful day lots of people were out taking advantage of the spring weather.

Below:  This is BUBBLE GUM art.

Later in the afternoon we walked along the waterfront.

Our view of Seattle at night from Elliott Bay Marina.