We arrived home for four days before our trip to the San Juan Islands. Mel hosted a delightful adventure! We started our adventure by driving to Anacortes. The ferry from Port Townsend to Coupeville departed on time, and arrived on schedule. Sylvia joined us on the ferry in her pickup. All our trikes were in both trucks. Also in our truck were four pies for the event:
We drove from Coupeville to Anacortes via Deception Pass. We had time to walk down some of the hiking paths. At the waterline, we watched many fishermen both in the water and in boats fishing for salmon. This is a beautiful area that I love walking around in.
Then it was on to Anacortes for the ferry to Friday Harbor. We unloaded the trikes, and delivered the pies and an extra battery for me into some of the vehicles that were driving onto the island. Sylvia and we left our pickups in the long term parking area. We were all supposed to take the 2:00 ferry, but it was canceled, and we didn’t finally sail until 5:30. It was a late night.
The next morning we all got the trikes setup to ride. After riding out to Roche Harbor, we stopped at Westcott Bay Shellfish Co. Mel arranged for an oyster tasting for the group, as he declared they would be a “life changing” experience. Paula tried them, and declared them delicious, but I wimped out.
On the climb, we met two retired bicycle racers who were out for a ride. They were having a great time staging photos on a steep hairpin turn.
Back at the Orcas ferry terminal we had a nice dinner on the lawn overlooking the harbor at the Orcas Hotel Restaurant. While there, we heard that our ferry from Orcas to Friday Harbor was canceled. We met up with the two bike racers again, and found them to be freezing in their spandex waiting for the same ferry. They joined us in conversation, telling us of their exploits. We also determined that on the way down from Mt. Constitution I traveled at 47 mph downhill — 1.1 mph faster than one of the bike racers. Boy, that was tough for him to deal with.
The ferry system finally scrambled another ferry. We loaded close to 11:00PM and got back to our guest house by 12:30AM. Another long day.
Here are some photos from the day…
Once we had completed the climb to the top, we all checked our brakes. Unfortunately, Paula discovered a leak in her hydraulic brakes at the summit and was safely transported down by the SAG support from Wildlife Cycles in Eastsound.
After another day of light riding around the island to the Cattle Point light station, the group enjoyed a final celebratory dinner at Friday Harbor House overlooking the harbor.
The next morning we got up early and queued up for an 8:00AM ferry. And as luck would have it, it was again canceled! We finally got underway back to Anacortes on the 11:00AM ferry. By now we were totally done with the ferry system, and drove overland from Anacortes and home to Sequim. Definitely the long way around, but at least there were no delays or cancellations. Whew!
