{"id":96,"date":"2015-08-30T18:22:39","date_gmt":"2015-08-30T18:22:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/waynemorrisoz.com\/?p=96"},"modified":"2015-08-30T18:28:52","modified_gmt":"2015-08-30T18:28:52","slug":"a-most-excellent-adventure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/waynemorrisoz.com\/index.php\/2015\/08\/30\/a-most-excellent-adventure\/","title":{"rendered":"A Most Excellent Adventure"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"San<\/a>The last week was a great vacation in the San Juan Islands with our good friends, Peter and Nereis Long.\u00a0 We chartered\u00a0‘Le Chateau’, a\u00a035ft power catamaran with me as skipper and Peter as navigation and safety officer, Alice as the deck hand and tour guide and Nereis as the excellent chef – quite the crew! Each day we motored for 1-2 hours between islands and then had an adventure on arrival –\u00a0hiking, exploring, shopping\u00a0in harbors with shops and trying out the kayak.<\/p>\n

\"San<\/a><\/p>\n

We started\u00a0out from Bellingham and went to Sucia Island on the first day where we\u00a0picked up a mooring in Echo Bay.\u00a0 Then it was off for a hike to Fossil Bay where we had no luck in finding a fossil, but the walk was still worthwhile.<\/p>\n

\"San<\/a>From Sucia it was off to Stuart Island where we again moored and then set off to explore the island and check out the Turn Point Lighthouse.\u00a0 Along the way we found the school and museum and purchased some shirts from the treasure chest – a unique, honor-based approach to merchandising. The light house was very interesting and we had a tour of the lighthouse keeper’s\u00a0house which was well done and very well maintained – the\u00a0Park service along with the volunteers\u00a0do a great job in presenting these national heritage sites.<\/p>\n

\"San<\/a>Then we went\u00a0 to Roche Harbor but first did a detour to see if we could find some whales.\u00a0 We were in luck!\u00a0 We managed to come across a pod of Orcas as they travelled north.\u00a0 We\u00a0saw them coming so just\u00a0put\u00a0the engines in neutral and let them come to us – and what a show.\u00a0 They were swimming within 100 yards of the boat and one even seemed to come towards us and then dive under the boat – just amazing!<\/p>\n

In\u00a0Roche Harbor we met\u00a0up with our good friends and neighbors, Mike and Patti who had arrived on their boat the day before.\u00a0 Mike had misheard me when I said I was getting\u00a0a berth for a day in Roche Harbor and he thought it was\u00a0my birthday.\u00a0 So they had a gift and\u00a0we\u00a0all\u00a0went off for a hilarious birthday dinner together with a birthday cake Mike had asked the wait staff to bring!\u00a0\u00a0 Best birthday ever and a total surprise!<\/p>\n

\"San<\/a>We then went to Shaw Island and anchored in Blind Bay.\u00a0 Peter and I took the kayak we had rented out for a spin, very\u00a0literally.\u00a0 The thing kept wanting to turn right no matter which way we tried to\u00a0paddle so it was quite the trek to get ashore and check out the general store.\u00a0 Shaw Island has an interesting history as the general store, caf\u00e9 and ferry dock had been run by nuns until a few years ago when they were getting a\u00a0little old.<\/p>\n

\"San<\/a><\/p>\n

That evening there was a brilliant sunset. We returned to the general stored in the morning for espresso and pastries. After a lazy morning it was off to Orcas Island where I had reserved a dock at Rossario marina.<\/p>\n

Rossario\u00a0is a great old resort with a lot of history that\u00a0illustrates the determination of individuals – in this case a\u00a0Mr Moran who was a very successful ship builder and business man in Seattle who had fallen ill and was given 6 months to live.\u00a0 He moved to Orcas Island and built his mansion in 1909 that is now the Rossario resort.\u00a0 We arrived in time to take a hike up to Cascade Lake and then return\u00a0to the mansion for the musical recital on the original organ and a 1900 Steinway piano accompanied by a slide show of original photos mostly taken by Mr Moran himself.\u00a0\u00a0This was very well done.<\/p>\n

\"San<\/a>After washing up at the marina facilities\u00a0(you don’t know the pleasure of a long hot shower until you’ve spent a few days on\u00a0small boat with limited water), it was off to the mansion for a great dinner and a hilarious waiter from Ireland who bonded with us once he figured out (very quickly) we were Australian.<\/p>\n

\"SanThe next day, we motored to our last\u00a0stop on Cypress Island and picked up a mooring in the very beautiful Eagle Harbor.\u00a0\u00a0Then it was off for a hike past Duck Lake to Smuggler’s Cove\u00a0where we learnt the story of Mrs Zoe Hardy who must have been quite the character.\u00a0 We did see a couple of vultures but no eagles – we must have a been a few weeks too late for that. A final dinner on board and it was time to ge ourselves ready to return to civilization.<\/p>\n

During\u00a0our\u00a0cruise\u00a0we had seen harbor seals, sea lion, porpoise, whales, and a snake. We had brilliant weather all during the week but the weather was turning and it rained all through the\u00a0night. The rain let up long enough the next morning for us to make\u00a0a pleasant\u00a0passage back to Bellingham and safe docking to end our adventure. Truly a most excellent week!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The last week was a great vacation in the San Juan Islands with our good friends, Peter and Nereis Long.\u00a0 We chartered\u00a0‘Le Chateau’, a\u00a035ft power catamaran with me as skipper and Peter as navigation and safety officer, Alice as the deck hand and tour guide and Nereis as the excellent chef – quite the crew! … Continue reading A Most Excellent Adventure<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/waynemorrisoz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/waynemorrisoz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/waynemorrisoz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/waynemorrisoz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/waynemorrisoz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/waynemorrisoz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110,"href":"https:\/\/waynemorrisoz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions\/110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/waynemorrisoz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/waynemorrisoz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/waynemorrisoz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}