We loved Lopez and the marina setting. It was a short walk into "town" and you would think you were in Mayberry - a few cute shops, restaurants, a farmers' market and even "The Mall". We were told to bring any used items that we wanted to get rid of so they could be left at The Mall. It was a building adjacent to the transfer station where locals and guests could drop off items and take anything they needed! What a great idea to reduce the waste that needed to be removed from the island. I came away with a couple of books to read. I didn't get any pictures of The Mall but we did enjoy the farmers market.
We had a great time with the EYC people and even though we missed the "Olympics" and other activities, we did get to enjoy a wonderful prime rib dinner at the Islander restaurant. Because the organized event began on Tuesday, many of the participants left by Saturday. We had planned to stay until 10:00 on Sunday but when we awoke at 5:00am, Bob was in severe pain from a fall he had taken on the 4th of July. We decided we should return to Everett and have him checked out by a doctor before we continued our vacation. We headed right out and found ourselves in very heavy fog as we approached Deception Pass. It was a little unnerving but all went well and we made it back to our marina. We made a quick trip to the walk-in clinic and discovered he did have a broken rib from when he fell on a beam across the end of our hobie cat. His instructions were to take Aleve and give it 6 weeks to heal. We decided the best way to "take it easy" was to be on Stargazer cruising through the San Juans so we returned to the boat and headed north to LaConner for the night.
After spending the night in LaConner, we cruised up to Anacortes to meet up with our friends, Mark and Kathy Still, who were in town visiting friends and family. We enjoyed the day cruising around the islands, catching up on each other's lives, and then had a wonderful meal at the Brown Lantern (a pub that came highly recommended by the locals) in Anacortes. We were very impressed with the beautiful new marina (Cap Sante Marina), the nearby Safeway grocery store, and many great restaurants and shops.
On Tuesday, July 10, we cruised on to Roche Harbor for four nights. We had hoped to do some anchoring in coves around the San Juans but because of Bob's broken rib we decided we were better off to stick with marinas where we could tie up instead of wresting with the anchor and dinghy. We love Roche Harbor, anyway, and it is a joy to spend four nights here. It is a beautiful resort with some amazing yachts in the harbor. (To see more pictures of Roche Harbor, see my earlier posts.) When we arrived, we discovered that there were three other couples for EYC that were also here. We had appetizers with them in the evening and then went back to our boat for dinner. I guess I need to buy Bob a new set of barbecue tools, though. When he picked up our steaks off the plate to put them on the grill, the tongs did not grip and one steak fell in the water and the other on the deck of the boat. We managed to salvage one of them but it was not the nice relaxing dinner we had been looking forward to. The evening ended with the dock attendants retiring the colors. Very nice ending to the evening. Barkley did not enjoy the canon firing, however. Tomorrow night we bring him inside before the ceremony.
Each day we took long walks near the airport so that Barkley could run off-leash. He had so much fun rolling in the tall grass. His picture should be in the dictionary under the word "bliss". On our last day at Roche Harbor we went out in the woods to do some geocaching. We found four but our best find was a little apricot Australian shepherd puppy. She was so thin we thought she must have been missing for a long time. As it turned out, we were able to track down her owner that afternoon. The puppy had been hit by an ATV and run off. One of the dock attendants recognized her and helped us get her back home.
For our last evening at Roche Harbor, the Lord treated us to an amazing lighting storm. It was absolutely beautiful and continued for three hours. The storm knocked out all the power on the island but it was restored by morning.
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