{"id":1956,"date":"2015-07-09T16:06:15","date_gmt":"2015-07-09T08:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/?p=1956"},"modified":"2019-02-03T15:48:59","modified_gmt":"2019-02-03T07:48:59","slug":"a-day-in-the-san-juan-islands-orcas-island-and-friday-harbor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/2015\/07\/09\/a-day-in-the-san-juan-islands-orcas-island-and-friday-harbor\/","title":{"rendered":"A Day in the San Juan Islands – Orcas Island and Friday Harbor"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve always wanted to visit the San Juan\u00a0Islands north of Seattle, known for their idyllic\u00a0views, quaint towns and whale watching.\u00a0While I didn’t have time for the latter, I still had a good visit to Orcas Island and Friday Harbor (on San Juan island) – two of the more popular destinations. A visit to the San Juans is\u00a0especially nice in the fine summer weather.<\/p>\n

\"Mt<\/a>
View of Mt Baker from the ferry<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The most practical way to reach the islands is to drive out to Anacortes and take a ferry from there. From Seattle it takes around 90 minutes to get to Anacortes and the ferry to Orcas Island is around another 65 minutes. We took the car aboard as we were\u00a0driving around Orcas Island although if you’re just going to Friday Harbor and joining a\u00a0whale watching tour, it makes sense to leave the car in Anacortes. From Orcas Island, we took an inter island ferry to Friday Harbor.\u00a0The three\u00a0main islands in the San Juans are San Juan, Lopez, and Orcas. The ferries stop at all three. Tip:<\/strong> you should make an online reservation if bringing the car on the ferry as space may be limited.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Orcas<\/a>
Approaching Orcas Island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Orcas Island is probably the most dramatic of the San Juans – the island is horseshoe shaped and possesses Mt. Constitution,\u00a0from where there are great views of the whole area. Our first stop on Orcas Island was to pay a visit to Orcas Island Pottery, which is \u00a0a collective of works by various potters. The pottery is displayed all around the garden, so it’s good fun just to walk around and check everything out. For those with kids, there’s even a tree house and swings to keep the young ones occupied. I ended up buying a vase for my Aunts.<\/p>\n

\"Orcas<\/a>
Entrance to Orcas Island Pottery<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Orcas<\/a>
Pottery is artfully strewn in the garden<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Orcas<\/a>
The side wall of the main store features an orca (killer whale) and more pottery<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Orcas<\/a>
The tree house<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Orcas<\/a>
The back garden faces the sea<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Orcas<\/a>
Back of the main store building<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Orcas<\/a>
Pretty hues of blue, green and purple in this set of vases and bowls<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Orcas<\/a>
The main store building<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We had lunch along the main commercial stretch of Orcas Island (namely Main Street) at the Island Skillet. While the food is not remarkable, it is decent, fresh and portions are sizable and they serve breakfast all day. I would have liked to spend more time to roam the shops in town but we wanted to get up to Mt. Constitution before catching the 4:25 pm ferry to Friday Harbor.<\/p>\n

\"Eating<\/a>
Island Skillet<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Orcas<\/a>
The island’s church and inn along Main St.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Orcas<\/a>
Looking out on the water from Main St.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mt. Constitution is the highest point in the San Juans. On a clear day you can see Vancouver B.C. Alas, it was a bit hazy but you could still see the mainland with Mt. Baker looming in the background.<\/p>\n

\"Orcas<\/a>
At the top of Mt Constitution’s observation tower<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Mt<\/a>
View of Mt. Baker and surrounding islands and mainland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Our ferry\u00a0to Friday Harbor, the main town on San Juan Island, was a pleasant, 35 minute\u00a0ride but unfortunately, by the time we arrived – most of the stores were closed. Island time as my aunt says! So we just roamed around – it was a hot afternoon – and found some ice cream parlors.<\/p>\n

\"San<\/a>
View of someone’s pink flamingoes from the ferry<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Friday<\/a>
Friday Harbor’s ferry terminal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Friday<\/a>
The waterfront, Friday Harbor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Friday<\/a>
Friday Harbor Ice Cream!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Friday<\/a>
View of some waterfront homes on Friday Harbor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We took the 6:30 pm ferry back to Anacortes. It was a shorter ride being a direct ferry from Friday Harbor. If we had more time, we could have taken a ride out to the other side of San Juan Island but as it was, it made more sense to hang around Friday Harbor. I’d like to do some hikes and\/or kayak in the San Juans\u00a0next time – which would mean staying overnight probably.<\/p>\n

San Juan Islands tourism site:<\/strong>\u00a0http:\/\/www.visitsanjuans.com<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Friday<\/a>
Leaving Friday Harbor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve always wanted to visit the San Juan\u00a0Islands north of Seattle, known for their idyllic\u00a0views, quaint towns and whale watching.\u00a0While I didn’t have time for the latter, I still had a good visit to Orcas Island and Friday Harbor (on San Juan island) – two of the more popular destinations. A visit to the San […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,153,17],"tags":[43,100,56],"class_list":["post-1956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-northamerica","category-usa-northamerica","tag-featured","tag-seattle","tag-usa","latest_post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1956"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1988,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956\/revisions\/1988"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}