Come out to San Juan Island and join us for a sea kayaking trip to see why the San Juan Archipelago is the little-known jewel of the Pacific Northwest!
End of August
It’s been a nearly perfect week here on San Juan Island, both off the water and on. The annual San Juan County Fair began on Wednesday, and Friday Harbor has been packed with visitors. The weather, which has been less than ideal for much of the summer, has finally turned nice. The whales have been out in full force on the west side of San Juan Island—yesterday’s sea kayak tour saw a pod of nearly thirty whales around Lime Kiln State Park, and just this morning we got word that there was a pod of around sixty Orcas traveling north…
News from the Garden!
After a coolish spring and summer, the Outdoor Odysseys garden located on the outskirts of Friday Harbor, San Juan Island is finally coming into full bloom! We continue to have organic zucchini, squash, rhubarb, basil, and several varieties of lettuce to send out on our overnight trips, and just a few days ago we harvested a number of cherry tomatoes and the first of our cucumbers. The larger tomatoes and lemon cucumbers are looking quite promising as well. All should be ripe within the next week! Join us for one of our sea kayaking trips and sample some of our…
Butterflies on San Juan Island
For such small and relatively isolated islands, the San Juans boast a variety of unique historical, geographical, and biological features. As I near the end of my first summer on San Juan Island, I continue to be amazed by the new things I learn about the San Juan Islands everyday. Aside from the Orca whales, bald eagles, and other unique types of birds and marine life that inhabit this area, San Juan Island is home to another rare species: the Island Marble butterfly, thought to have gone extinct for nearly 100 years before turning up in American Camp, a National…
Baby Names
August is here, meaning it’s time to name some baby Orcas! Four calves from the three pods of resident Orca whales that reside in the water off the west coast of San Juan Island will be given names this month by the San Juan Island Whale Museum. Read more about the four calves and vote for your favorite names between now and the end of August! Better yet, come join us on one of our sea kayaking tours in Orca whale habitat. http://www.whale-museum.org/programs/orcadoption/Name_the_Babies_11.html
Island Hopping in the San Juans
This past week, I had a friend in town who was visiting the San Juan Islands for the first time. Wanting to show her as much of the islands as possible (and wanting to do a bit of exploring myself!) I decided to take the opportunity to visit a couple of the other islands in the San Juans. The Washington State Ferry, which runs between Anacortes and Friday Harbor, also provides service to three other islands in the San Juan archipelago: Orcas, Lopez, and Shaw. Of the four islands served by the ferry, San Juan is the most populated, Orcas…