Bill and Eileen's Travels: Thursday, July 17, 2014

Today is Thursday 7/17/2014. I just finished the update for our travels up until our visit to Anacortes. We are currently in Burnaby, BC just east of Vancouver. I will try to include both locations in this post so for the first time in weeks I will be up to date.

Anacortes, Washington (7/10 - 7/15)

On the 10th we drove the buses to Port Townsend, Wash. and squeezed them on a Ferry to Coupeville, Wash. This is a short ferry but it allowed us to cross a part of the water so we didn't have to drive all the way around saving us about 150 miles of travel. Our ride took us to Anacortes, Wash. an old cannery town, that is now very much into yacht building and repairs. The town is on the end of the bay with the campground across from two refineries. This sounds a lot worst than it was because this turned out to be a super campground.

We had an Bald Eagle sentry just above the building next to us for most of the time we were here. There was also a Heron nesting area behind the spruce trees above us. Our time here was basically to chill but we did do a ferry ride to Friday Harbor, an island in the San Juan Islands. It is a tourist town with nice shops and restaurants. We walked around, had lunch, and had great luck shopping. The San Juan's are a 150+ group of islands that are very beautiful. Most of the islands are uninhabited but the larger ones have beautiful homes and quaint little towns. The Washington State Ferry System takes you to all of the larger inhabited islands. We didn't take the car to Friday Harbor, we just walked the town.

On Monday the 14th we did a six hour whale watch out of Anacortes that turned out to be the highlight of our stay. We had a lot of fog early in the trip and it was looking pretty dim until we hit the pods. What we saw was Orcas. I didn't know this but Orca's are not whales they are members of the Porpoise Family. We started to see them, the fog lifted, and then we literally had them all around the boat. I'm guessing we saw at least 40 to 50 different Orca's that day, many of them over and over as we moved around. I sure wish I had a better camera. I saw two breaches, and many tail slaps. It was just amazing. Other wildlife included, a bald eagle, seals, numerous sea birds. It was a fantastic day.

On Tuesday we left the campground, a day ahead of Mark and Kathie. Mark had a medical appointment for Tuesday morning and after that they joined us here in Burnaby yesterday afternoon.