Sailing the San Juans: A San Juan Day

Our breakfast, as always at Roche Harbor,  was at the Lime Kiln Café at the end of the dock. If you click on the photo, the nearer building says "Roche Harbor Lime & Cement Co. Largest Lime Works West of the Mississippi." We'll see more about the history of this place in a later post.

Melissa greeted us wearing a hat woven from cedar strips, the traditional material and technique used by the original islanders for many articles of clothing.

We headed off towards American Camp, on the far south side of San Juan Island. This is the encampment site for the U.S. troops protecting the American claim to the San Juans, a twin to the English Camp we visited earlier (documented halfway through the previous post).

On the way the bus stopped at the Westside Preserve.

The view included Vancouver Island, just across the strait, and the Olympic Mountains that give the San Juans their drier climate, to the left in this panorama.

We continued south, and bypassed the main Visitor Center for American Camp in favor of driving down to South Beach. The extensive grasslands on the southwestern side of the island show how little rain falls compared to the other sections.

In the above photo we are paused on Pickett's Lane to admire the grasslands. Yes, that Pickett, who in 1859 was a captain in the U.S. Army and landed with the first U.S. troops to contest ownership of the island with the English. Four years later he would lead a division of the Army of Northern Virginia at Gettsyburg, a continent away.

South Beach had the usual signage about park rules and regulations; of particular interest to me was this diagram of the rules of orca-watching. The sign is actually out-of-date, recently the no-go radius was increased from 100 to 200 yards.

The tides and winds deposit a lot of driftwood on South Beach, as this Google Maps image shows.

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Absorbing the landscape, we scanned further and further along the horizon, and then spotted what we eventually decided was Mt. Rainier shimmering through the haze on the horizon.

Candy and Pat also strolled up the beach to admire a bald eagle perched on the driftwood.

On leaving the beach the bus turned southeast. Our goal was to walk down to a lagoon on the northern side of the island, which is not far at all because the island is less than a mile wide at this point: 

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However, the bus could not turn around on the narrow road, and we continued down Cattle Point Rd. until we could take advantage of a loop. On the way, we made a fortuitous stop wherein we discovered a fox in the flowers.

Once the bus was pointed in the right direction, those who wanted to stroll down to the lagoon disembarked and followed a nature trail through the woods. This pocket of the island was still wet enough to support banana slugs, including this black beauty.

The lagoon was enjoyable to see, and the leg stretch was welcome, but we didn't discover as much wildlife as we had hoped. It turned out this would be compensated for in the afternoon.

We returned to Roche Harbor, and sailed out for a second and final orca-watching expedition around 2:30pm. There was a lot to see just leaving the harbor area, but first, a picture of our boat for the afternoon.

On the parallel dock, the most important service boat offered by the harbor.

Leaving the harbor, we saw this floatplane come in ...

and there was this sailboat ...

and the seals were hauled out in the sun.

Traveling by water parallel to our morning's track on land, we soon approached the Lime Kiln lighthouse.

The kayakers had likely put into the water just north of the lighthouse, at San Juan County Park.

We began to see various creatures as we continued southbound. Here, a guillemot (in the rather large Alcidae family) has popped up to the surface with a beak full of small fish.

For a while there were harbor porpoises also feeding.

Then J pod appeared, and this time they were awake and barreling up from the south. Some of these photos stretched the limits of my point-and-shoot camera, but they should give you an idea of what we were seeing in person and through binoculars.

This orca is falling back into the water after having leapt completely out of the sea.

Several of the orcas were also lobtailing, or slapping their tail fins against the sea, making a loud splash. You can feel the exuberance radiating from them when they do this.

This jumper is perfectly posed, so I offer it despite any fuzziness or graininess in the image.

As the pod swiftly approached and passed us, we had many excellent looks at the orcas. The speed and unpredictability of their actions made it hard to always snap the camera at the right time or at the right orca, but here is a good shot of a youngster swimming with his mother; only her fin is showing.

Here a jumper is landing on her back with a big splash. The rings from the jump out of the water are just behind her.

One orca passed by so close to the stern of our boat that all our jaws were agape.

J pod continued to zoom north, and Melissa laid out a spread for us to nosh on after we calmed down.

We stayed out a while longer, as the laggards of J pod passed by, but this trailing edge was not as acrobatically inclined, and any pictures would just be more fins, and just fins. Then it was time to return to Roche Harbor, grinning.

We had a satisfying group dinner at McMillin's restaurant, overlooking the harbor, despite the glare of the lowering sun on our table. Unfortunately, tomorrow we would leave Roche Harbor, to eventually return to Bellingham, and that meant it was time to pack again.

Sailing the San Juans: Cypress and Orcas Islands

The next morning brought rain and drizzle, but that's not unusual for the Pacific Northwest. Melissa had chartered the Gato Verde for today's sailing to Cypress Island and then Orcas Island.

The Gato Verde is a "green" catamaran ("Gato Verde" is Spanish for green cat), which can sail under wind power, or a bio-diesel fed engine, or, for silent cruising, up to two hours on batteries. The captain/owner, Todd Schuster, also uses open source software for his GPS mapping, which endeared him to me even more. Here we are gathered in the stern for a briefing from Todd. We're still at the Bellingham dock.

The rain gradually let up over the morning hours. Here several of us are practicing our deck-walk from the stern to the bow and back.

After the precipitation ended the first adventurous souls relaxed on the net on the bow between the two hulls.

There is a (very small) bathroom in either hull. In the bathroom is a window, with the ocean rushing by a foot or two below. There is an admonition posted on the window, "Do not open this window while the vessel is under way." Yessir!

Our first destination, Cypress Island, is the last largely undeveloped island in the San Juan group. Over 90% of the island is managed by the Washington Department of Natural Resources; the population is about 40. The island was named by the explorer George Vancouver, who misidentified its juniper trees as cypress.

We took the opportunity to hike across the northern neck of the island, commuting to and from the beach by zodiac.

From the zodiac we could finally see the complete lines of the Gato Verde.

For those who preferred not to wander through the wet vegetation, that is, not to take the hike, the beach offered its own opportunities.

Almost immediately we encountered our first banana slug. Now I knew we were truly in the Pacific Northwest.

These creatures come in plain green, green with dark spots, green with dark stripes, or sometimes with a brown background, and sometimes even black. It became quite ordinary to see one after the first hour, but still we kept an eye out for them, lest we coat our boots with squished slug.

Cypress Island was certainly green. Even though the San Juan Islands are in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains and, to a lesser extent, Vancouver Island, and generally get half the annual rainfall of Seattle, the wetness varies widely from island to island, and even from one point to another in the larger islands.

Flowers also loved the weather.

Our halfway point was Duck Lake, which is slowly turning into a marshy wetland as it fills with eroding soil and dead vegetation.

We began to descend down the eastern side of the island towards Eagle Harbor, where the Gato Verde and its zodiac awaited us. This side of the island was less choked with low vegetation; whether it is due a difference in the microclimate or the history of the island I cannot say.

After reboarding the Gato Verde we sailed through Obstruction Pass and started up the East Sound of Orcas Island, which was named for a viceroy of Mexico, not for the marine mammals (orcas, or killer whales). It looks in outline like two islands glued together, or perhaps like an island that had been gouged by the claws of a monster.

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Todd tried valiantly to sail up the sound with the wind -- the Gato Verde can sail in breezes as low as four knots -- but we were moving too slowly for the schedule, and the engine was turned on. We were approaching the docks next to the Rosario Resort & Spa, halfway up the East Sound, where we would say goodbye to Todd and the Green Cat.

The back steps are built into the catamaran.

The story of the Rosario is a familiar one. An industrial baron of the Gilded Age, in this case Robert Moran, who arrived in Seattle in 1875 with only one dime and became a shipbuilding magnate, bought 7,000 acres and built himself a mansion. The industrialist eventually died and the property passed through several hands, its purchase price declining each time, until it opened as the Rosario Resort and Spa in 1960. The expense of maintaining an century-old property is considerable.

We arrived at the end of a Saturday organ concert, and had time for a quick visit in the main building before the next event, a wedding. Here is view of the concert room from the balcony.

The organ keyboard must require dexterity and practice.

Part of the waiting room next to the restaurant.

The mansion is also known for its stained glass; here, a Tiffany chandelier and window.

The nautical theme of this window is appropriate for Robert Moran.

It was quickly time to reboard our bus and check into our accommodations, the Outlook Inn, located in town on the neck of land connecting the eastern and western parts of Orcas Island.

We had a spacious room and a small balcony with a view of the water.

Tomorrow we would explore more of Orcas Island.