Thursday, September 03, 2009

We left Portland right after another excellent breakfast at HPP with Nanma and drove as quickly as we could for the ferry at Anacortez. We didn't quite know where Anacortez was and we didn't really understand why Seattle traffic was so bad mid-day. Never the less we made the (very large) ferry in time. (There were bets to the contrary). This is a view from our ferry leaving Orcas Island heading to Vancouver I realize when thinking about it - but was worth mentioning. Our huge ferry stopped dead and lowered a zodiac to "rescue" this eagle. This (female?) was swimming away as fast as she could go but she had a long way to go. However by the time the ferry managed to halt and zodiac get lowered she had made it to shore. The boat folks thought she was hurt and called the wildlife people but I think it turned out she just had a huge fish in her mouth and couldn't fly. She hopped up the hill where she was met by her mate. It was quite interesting watching an eagle swim using their wings.

This fuzzy lady was in one of the fields on the farm we stayed at on Orcas Island in the San Juans.
A and I walked down to the beach at the farm shortly after 7 a.m. It was amazing to see how glass smooth the water is - after all this is ocean water.

It was low tide and there were plenty of orange and purple sea stars to be seen. I love tidepooling and especially the showy stars - perhaps because I never had the opportunity until I was an adult. It will be interesting to see if my kids seek them out when they grow up.

Before we left we grabbed some lunch and headed to the highest point on the mountain - our group is at the picnic table below. It was a hazy day but you could still see a classic cone volcano in the distance (Mt Baker?). Orcas was only one night but a lovely island worth a longer visit some day. For more photos see long or short.

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