I Love Camping in the San Juan Islands

Here are some photos from days 3-5 of our camping trip.

If you are camping in the San Juan Islands, make sure you take all your gear in large Rubbermaid containers so you only have to clean up raccoon paw prints and not the mess they make of your supplies! The taller size are perfect for sliding under the picnic bench so they are raccoon proof the whole night.


Sallad and Grace's tent.




Cool Chris-Craft at Roche Harbor. I think the three different seating "couches" on this boat are neat. It is such a strange arrangement, but looks comfy for cruising!


Mmm, ketchup. Who needs fries when you have fingers!?


Evening view from the campsite.


On our way to meeting Lord's day morning.


Mr. James Bond..... I mean, The Mr.


Grace and I.


It was strange getting dressed for meeting while boat camping. I kept my jeans on until we got to dry land because it's not really practical tying lines and dropping fenders with a dress on!


Our plan was to drop Sallad and Grace off at the boat launch in Anacortes, then The Mr. and I would park the boat at a marina nearby and they would come get us in their truck and we would all go to meeting in Marysville. Well, when we got to the boat launch, the tide was so low that the dock was completely out of the water! Thankfully we had an inflatable kayak and Sallad rowed his way in.


Excuse the poor photo quality as I took it through the window of the boat. Have you ever seen a motoring sailboat motoring this fast?! It looked hilarious to see, as usually sailboats motor at just a few knots. I think it's a MacGregor.


Friday Harbor ferry dock.


Outside one of our favorite places to eat in Friday Harbor, Haley's Bait Shop. This is an excellent restaurant with amazing Thai chicken wraps that are gluten free. If you ever visit, the wraps are under the salad menu because they are more like toppings you pile on top of romaine lettuce leaves than the traditional tortilla wraps.


Popeye, Friday Harbors resident harbor seal who is blind in one eye. You can see that it is clouded over. Here is a statue of her. (Yes, Popeye is a girl, they thought she was a boy until she gave birth to a baby!)

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My, what huge nostrils you have Popeye!




Almost looks tropical.








The first time I have ever been able to take a photo of the stars. Of course this still doesn't show the layers and layers of stars we could see. Sallad showed me what setting to use, thank you so much!



This was such an amazing night. When The Mr. and I got down to the boat, there was some sort of a large animal (most likely a harbor seal) swimming around our boat and surfacing and breathing really heavy. It was pitch black all around us so it was pretty creepy! It was amazing to be in complete blackness and silence, and listen to the seal moving around and breathing.



Floating Art Gallery


Orcas Island Ferry Dock


Rosario Resort (See the mansion on the left?)


When we pulled up to Rosario, there were hundreds of jellyfish in the water! These are Moon Jellyfish, which are distinguishable by the four pinkish horseshoe markings.










Here is a clear shot of the four pinkish horseshoe markings.


A little family climbed into this plane and they flew away like it was something they did every day. How fun!


I love old buildings, they have a lot of character.




Here is what the sign says, I typed it all out as I love history!

This figurehead is from the clipper ship "America". She was build in 1874 at Quincy, Massachusetts by Deacon George Thomas. Her original owners were Thaver&Co. of Boston. In 1887 she was put in the pacific coasting trade and was wrecked on San Juan island in the year 1914.

The "America" has some notable voyages to her credit, namely, from New York to San Francisco in 89 days and from San Francisco to Liverpool in 102 days.

Captain J. S. Gibson at one time her commander, records that this figurehead was a source of much pride to him. That it had many times in many ports been remarked upon as being one of the most artistic figureheads that ever graced the bow of a ship and there is probably no other on an American vessel that has been mentioned so many times in public print. It is carved from a solid white pine log.

This is erected by me to commemorate a beautiful sentiment in ship building now becoming a lost art.

Figure donated by Captain James Griffiths.

Rosario 1916 Robert Moran



Calm, tame deer hanging out.


Rosario Resort at the mansion. There are pools, there are tours of the mansion and when we were there, a beautiful wedding was taking place. This place used to be booming, but when we were there it was pretty empty. You couldn't even get a glass of water. It looked like everything was closed, but they were still giving tours and they said they have great plans for the place.


Then.....


... and now!


I think these old lines are still in use as they looked well taken care of. You can buy those glass parts in antique stores.






Bald Eagle


Baby Seagulls. Excuse all the dripping poo. :)

Now, here are some home movies!

Day 2 of our Fabulous Boat Camping Trip

The campsite as seen from our boat the next morning.

A hot breakfast of Dutch Fry (scrambled eggs with small cubes of ham, cubed fried potatoes and grated cheddar,) fruit salad and orange juice.

These travel booster seats are the best. It not only kept Bri in her seat for each meal, but it kept her safe from wandering too far from camp, which is especially important when your camp site is on cliffs! She was either held, in her seat or in the tent being watched at all times.

And we're off for the day! I love how comfortable Bri is on boats. She has been on boats since a couple weeks after she was born.

Sallad, Grace and Bri.

This was the most photo filled of all the days because we did something that all of us have wanted to do for a while now. We crossed the border into Canada via the water. It is really neat to enter into international waters and land in Canada with only a phone call and exchange of numbers. All five of us on the trip were Nexus members and that really speeds things along.

International waters. The one thing I kept thinking was "boy it would be easy to run aground here!" Look at all those tiny pieces of land that would be hard to see during different tides.


Hello Sidney BC!




I just noticed now that this lamp post only has 2/3rds of it's lights and this is probably the 8th time I've looked at it.


The Port of Sidney Marina is so beautiful!


We had fun posing with bronze statue people. Notice the shoes.


Notice the purses.


Notice the flowers. He he. The fisherman was actually tying a lure, but someone had placed flowers in his hands so we made The Mr. copy the statue, as it was his turn!




Veterans Club


A neat place to trade in your old boat stuff, search for treasures and antiques (Dad- they didn't have any oil cans!) or pick up pirate and boat themed decor.




This box was not for sale or else we would have bought it.




Sidney Pier




Tide Pools


We ate lunch at the cafe on the right. YUMMY!




The staged but very cool tidepool outside the Ocean Discovery Center. We didn't go inside because it looked expensive and kid oriented, but it looked really cool and I really want to go there someday. Click on that link and I think you will agree with me.


I got a ton of starfish, sun star, sea anemone, hermit crab and sea urchin photos, but they were blurry. More so than this one! You can see a huge sun star in the center of the photo, which is what ate/let loose all our crab last year!




A beautiful stone at Mineral World and Scratch Patch. It's a store that sells $3000 stones right alongside $7 quarts necklaces. It has a play area where kids can pan for gold or choose semi precious stones to fill a bag. For a lot of money of course, but there aren't any signs that say you can't hang out and play for free!




A boat load of fun. He he.


Isn't that butter yellow boat so pretty! I love how anything painted in this particular shade of yellow looks retro.


Sidney Spit is a popular destination in the Gulf Islands.


The water was so cold that I didn't even stick a toe into it. The guys were so brave though! Later I am planning on posting a video and you can see them dive in and watch their reactions.




Celebrity Cruises on it's way back from Alaska.


Our keepers! Yummy dungeness crab.


Hello there crab, I'm going to eat you!!! (Don't you think he looks worried?)


All ready to be steamed. A huge thanks goes to the nice man who showed us how to do this. I am planning on putting the video up so that everyone else can learn too!


Dinner in the dark. This was SO much fun! We had lemon, butter, steamed veggies and yummy mashed potatoes to go along with more crab than any of us could eat in one sitting.


The aftermath. And with that ending note, I'm going to go and get a snack. These photos made me so hungry!