Saturday-Sunday, October 16-17
We spent a delightful, sunny Saturday exploring Shaw Island and Lopez Island by car. We took the 9:45 am ferry from Orcas Village to the Shaw Island terminal and enjoyed about three hours of wandering up and down the often-dead-end roads and tracks of this densely-forested, very-rural island as sunshine back-lit the green-and-gold leaves of the deciduous trees and outlined the branches of the evergreens. As was the case throughout the San Juan and Gulf islands, we saw apple trees everywhere, wild and cultivated, and most were buried beneath huge loads of ripe fruit. At one point, we stopped at the side of the road and I picked three pretty pink-and-green apples from a tree outside a fence, and collected a fourth from the ground below it. They made splendid snacks throughout our day! We found the well-maintained school building and grounds, the excellent all-volunteer-supported library and museum (a picture of which you can find here, because I didn’t manage to take a photo myself: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1331625692311521&set=a.1055152903292136), the Our Lady of the Rock Benedictine Monastery (a cloistered community of Benedictine nuns), a beach area nearly buried beneath a huge amount of driftwood, and many homes of all types, usually well-hidden in the woods at the ends of private driveways.
We had a little time to wait at the ferry dock for the 1:05 pm sailing,
Shaw Island ferry dock area
and so we visited the small but nicely-furnished general store (groceries, gifts, sundries, etc.) and bought a bag of cheese-and-salted-caramel popcorn to munch while we waited for the ferry to take us to Lopez Island. Here, we spent about two hours driving around among the farms and along the shores, and visiting Agate Beach,
Surf and near-shore rocks at Agate Beach, a famous summer beach resort area
Fisherman Bay, Lopez Village (where we’d attended the local Episcopal church, encountered a long-time friend from the church in Kenmore, WA, where Walt was music director for 20 years, eaten at a restaurant, and caught COVID!). We found the Barn Owl Bakery, a very nice “honor system” shop where we bought rosemary shortbread and pesto twists—VERY interesting items indeed!
The 3:20 pm ferry returned us to Orcas Village, from which we drove back to Deer Harbor for a relaxing evening after a delightful day. We watched one of our favorite detective mystery videos before bed, and looked forward to attending Emmanuel Episcopal Church in the town of Eastsound on Sunday morning.
As planned, we participated in wonderful worship at Emmanuel Episcopal on another superlatively sunny autumn day.
The labyrinth and garden at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Eastsound
This is a church we’ve visited a number of times, and it’s always great to return to a very friendly, active faith community. After the Eucharist, we decided to meander around the eastern part of Orcas Island where we haven’t spent as much time, visiting Moran State Park, Doe Bay, the village of Olga, and some beautiful shoreline areas.
By about 3:30 pm, we were back on Braesail, catching up on computer tasks and preparing for online Compline. I wrote this blog post after singing Compline with five others, eating supper, and doing some packing for our ferry trip back to Anacortes on Monday afternoon. We’ve ended this nine-week boating excursion with two great days of island exploration, and look forward to returning to the boat from time to time to continue work on Walt’s LONG list of still-to-do’s, and to take short trips as time and weather permit. As always, ending a trip is sad for me, but I have uncountable blessings to count, too!
