After cleaning up the wee and having a San Juan continental breakfast we packed the car and set off on our Island tour. As there was hardly any traffic on the island we decided we would meander our way round the island at UK Sunday driver speed. After heading south from Friday Harbor on the scenic tour our first stop was Jackson Bay. It was a brief stop here to admire the driftwood and check the bay to see if any Orcas wanted to co-operate on the photo front. They didn’t.
Back in the car and off we went to American Camp. There is an American Camp and an English Camp on the island – at opposite ends. Both these camps/parks celebrate how individuals and nations can resolve disputes without resorting to violence (someone else’s words!). For it was here in the mid 1800s that Great Britain and the United States settled ownership of the island through peaceful arbitration of the “Pig War” crisis. It was known as the Pig War because both the Brits and Americans were on the island when an American shot an British pig. Clearly that sort of behavior is completely unacceptable and as a result the 12 year Pig War occurred.
The British Royal Marines remained on the island making formal gardens, building a library and a school and having horse races for about 12 years until Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany decided the sovereignty of the dispute and awarded the islands to the U.S. in 1872. Blooming Germans!
Before leaving the American Camp Grandad nearly started what would have been known as the Cricket War. We were walking along when Harry stopped, point at the ground and said “look there’s a cricket … oh”. The “oh” came out just as Grandads shoe landed on the cricket. Poor cricket. Still we left before any Americans spotted the incident and continued on our journey with the Cricket War avoided.
Next stop, at the bottom of the island was South Beach. Another beautiful beach and bay which was covered with driftwood. Harry and Toby gave Tracy hysterics as they scared themselves silly when they were in a driftwood construction which they thought was about to fall on them. Silly boys! Once again I was busy staring at the ocean waiting for the Orcas to appear but they didn’t. Grrr!
After Sunset Beach we hit Lime Kiln Point State Park. The drive up along the coast was stunning. It really is a beautiful island and was fast becoming my favorite over Whidbey. Lime Kiln Park was the place I had been looking forward to the most. As no-one wanted to go on a whale watching trip with me (poor me) I was hopeful that this would bring me the elusive photo as this is the only park in the world dedicated to shore-based orca whale watching. And as such they refer to it (like so many other things) as the “best in the world”. Unfortunately the closest we got to seeing an Orca was a seals butt! Good but not really what I was looking for! When I spotted the seal I pointed and called to everyone else to look – this noise and pointing got the nearby Japanese tourists very excited and they rushed over to see. They were a little disappointed when all there was was a seal. Later on as we walked back up through the woods to the car I decided to take an artistic photo looking up to the top of a tree from the base of the trunk. As I leant against it, with the camera clicking the same Japanese tourist came running over asking “what’s up there? what is it?”. They seemed a touch confused and slightly disappointed when I said “nothing, I’m just taking artistic pictures”. When I left they were still standing at the bottom taking pictures up the tree! There really was nothing there!
By now we were completely ravenous so we drove to the top of the island to a small place (aka historic seaside village) called Roche Harbor. Our research the night before had revealed that Roche Harbor was the 3rd best place for a summer visit in 2011 (according to the National Geographic Traveler) and the #2 place to visit in the world (that’s right, the WORLD!) 2011 and this was according to the New York Times. As you can imagine we’d built this up in our heads to be something pretty spectacular! And to be fair it wasn’t half bad! Another truly beautiful location with what is without doubt the most spectacular harbor full of boats I’ve ever seen. You normally get a couple of really nice boats in each harbor round here but at Roche Harbor 98% of the boats were incredible. Fortunately for me no-one came along and forced me to choose which boat I wanted because I just wouldn’t have been able to pick one! Tracy managed to select one in the end but Grandad wasn’t getting into the spirit of it – he decided he’d just want the money and buy a nice car instead!
After lunch at Roche Harbor we went to the English Camp. It was way better than the American Camp. Clearly the Brits knew how to select a nice camp and they also knew how to construct a proper building. There was barely anything left at the American Camp but there were four buildings remaining at the English Camp along with their formal gardens. It must have been a very nice posting for the Marines – nothing to do but relax in a gorgeous setting and do a spot of gardening.
Our final destination that afternoon was the San Juan Winery. While Tracy and her dad worked their way through eight different wines, I sat on the deck in the sunshine while the boys charged around the garden rolling about and fighting each other. When the two drinkers emerged with a selection of bottles (of award winning wine) we slowly made our way back to Friday Harbor for the final drama of the day. The bin on the corner of the street by our hotel had clearly been on fire. Fortunately the fire station was located over the road but rather than just bring a bucket of water over and throw it in they sent the fire engine over. It was all a bit over the top, however we took a couple of pictures of their lovely fire engine – all clean and chromey!!
And with that we retired to our rooms to get ready for dinner. All that fresh air had made us ravenous!
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