Orcas Island

Orcas Island is one of my favorite places. I don't know if I'd ever want to live there because there is a very limited amount of things to do there, but I love going there on vacation.

Here is the ferry picking us up from Port Townsend:


Waving goodbye to Port Townsend:


These are some flowers I saw at a restaurant while we were waiting for the second ferry, the one that goes to the islands:


The car deck on the second ferry:


The interior of the luxurious Washington State Ferry:


The sock I was knitting on the ferry (and the rest of the trip, but the photo was on the ferry):


Exiting at the Orcas Island ferry landing!


Our inn was a 45-minute drive from the ferry landing - the island is shaped like an upside down U, and is on the opposite end - as you can see, it involved dirt roads:


Photo of the inn, taken from the back:


Our room:



Common area:


This was where we ate brunch everyday after kayaking for 2 hours:


The kayaks:


Paddles up against the outside of the kayaking "shed":


The beach we launched from:


I didn't take my camera out on the water because I know I would have dropped it right in. Someone else did take pictures of us in our boat, but I haven't seen those yet.

One of the resident golden retrievers showed me who was Alpha:


This is one of the Orcas Island deer... They have been inbreeding for years, so they are a bit strange...they have no predators on the island (except cars) and hunting is banned, so these guys are EVERYWHERE.


We did go on a wildlife tour one day...no whales, but we saw lots of harbor seals, sea lions, bald eagles, and a few porpoises. My camera wasn't capable of good photos of that, but I'll try to eventually post some of the ones C got with his SLR camera....here he is on a rare pause between photos:


And finally - what many of you will find most exciting....I had seen this sign shortly after we exited the ferry, and just HAD to go back for a visit to Warm Valley Orchard:


This bumper sticker was on the car in the driveway:

Very promising.

The studio was attached to her house, it felt kind of odd going in there. But it was worth it:







Of course I bought something...the only reason this is all I got was that she didn't take credit cards, and I had just enough cash with me for this:

It's about 600 yards of worsted-weight undyed alpaca. Yum!

On the way out I got a photo of her sheep:


It's too hard to capture the feeling of a vacation in photos, but hopefully you enjoyed seeing it anyway.