I’m taking a break from talk about fishing, because on Saturday I married my sweetheart Viktoria! It poured down rain all day. She’s from Ukraine, and in her country it’s considered good luck if it rains on your wedding day. It was certainly a very lucky day for us!
We took a short honeymoon to the San Juan Islands, staying in a historic Craftsman house which had been converted to an Airbnb. Our first day of marriage was spent exploring San Juan Island, including American Camp, English Camp, Roche Harbor, and Lime Kiln Point.
Day Two was all about whales. We stopped by the Whale Museum in Friday Harbor. We ate our grocery store sandwiches at a tiny park with a gorgeous view over the harbor. Then we embarked on an afternoon whale watching cruise aboard the Odyssey, a beautiful wooden-hulled boat built in 1941.
I’ve been on a couple of similar cruises in the past, but I think this one was the best. We found a family of five transient (“Bigg’s”) orcas, pretty far from Friday Harbor off Patos Island. The whale watching community can identify every orca in our waters. These ones were a momma named Bella/T099 and her four children. It was exciting to see them in the wild, and I captured some pretty clear footage on my phone (see below).
The third day of our honeymoon was spent exploring Orcas Island. We got up early to catch the 6:00 a.m. interisland ferry to Orcas Village. When we got there we headed straight for my favorite park in the Washington parks system, Moran State Park. We started with the long climb through the dense forest up to the beautiful Mount Constitution lookout, which was built in the 1930s. The clouds were still in the process of burning off when we arrived, and we caught a glimpse of Mount Baker for the first time this week. It was an amazing view. We then did the gorgeous 3.9-mile Mountain Lake Loop Trail. Being early on a Tuesday morning, we had the trail almost to ourselves.
Afterwards, we tried to explore every corner of the island from Olga to Rosario to Deer Harbor, finally winding up back at the Orcas Hotel for dinner. I’m getting used to the serenity of island life.
Everywhere we’ve gone, people have commented on the “Just Married” art on our car windows, which was drawn by my stepdaughter Nina. The ferry workers in particular always strike up a fairly long conversation about it. We’re having a good time.
On the fourth day we were kind of running out of things to do on San Juan Island, so we decided to stop by Lopez for a few hours on the way home. We took a bit of a risk by cancelling our reservation back to Anacortes from Friday Harbor, even though we couldn’t get one from Lopez. The inter-Island ferry is interesting because they actually park the cars in opposite directions on the same boat. They had me drive in a big circle on the deck, going down one side and up the other until I was facing the ramp. Then they parked cars for other destinations facing the usual way.
The June-uary weather had finally broken, and it was an absolutely gorgeous day to be on the water. When we got to Lopez we made a beeline for Spencer Spit State Park. We took a relaxing stroll along the beach, and talked to a marine biology class that was digging clams to measure how big they were and how deep. After that we had lunch in Lopez Village and drove to the far side of the island and back. We got to the ferry dock an hour early, and were lucky enough to be one of the last five cars on the boat. I got parked on the steep ramp leading up the second deck, and had to have our wheels blocked to help prevent us from rolling backwards.
Today we start our ordinary life together. We have many joys and challenges ahead of us, but I feel good about my decision. Wish us luck!
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