San Juan Islands

Washington state has a great ferry system that we took advantage of a few times. The first time was when we went to Victoria, Canada. The second time we took a ferry from Anacortes, WA to the San Juan Islands. This is a cluster of islands off the northern shore of WA, but still a part of WA state. We only went to one of the islands known as Friday Harbor.

Just like on our trip to Victoria we chose to walk on the ferry rather than drive the big truck. It’s much cheaper that way, and then we used an island taxi service to take a drive over to Lime Kiln Point State Park, one of the most scenic places on the island. This park is also supposed to be one of the best whale-watching spots on earth, but unfortunately it was so foggy the day we were there that we didn’t see any whales.

Lime Kiln Point has a few short hikes, the first one we did was to Dead Man’s Cove. Interesting name for a hiking trail, don’t you think?

Hiking to Dead Man’s Cove

Dead Man’s Cove

We spent quite a while just hanging out and playing at this secluded little beach.

Jake (or is he Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn?) decided to make another raft out of the driftwood like he did back at Ruby Beach.

Later we hiked over to see the Lime Kiln Point Lighthouse.

Lime Kiln Point Lighthouse

We took another taxi back to Friday harbor and spent the rest of the day exploring the little seaside town including a visit to the Whale Museum.

Then we caught the evening ferry and sailed off into the sunset again, back to the mainland.

The boys enjoyed working on a partially completed puzzle on the ferry ride back. I wonder how many ferry trips it took before the puzzle was completed.