Despite all of the fun that we had, both the Bear and Townshend groups were ready to get back to San Juan Island.

We began our day bright and early by waking up at 5:30 AM, where a soft-colored sunrise greeted us. Those who slept on the boats greeted the day eagerly and began to ferociously take down the boat covers. Everyone who had slept on land took down tents and packed up their personal gear, which were then fire-lined onto the boats. After much trial and error, everyone safely climbed up onto the boats.

With everyone the boats and everything secured, both boats began rowing to their anchors. After cautiously getting the anchors back on board, the groups embarked on their final journeys to Cap Sante Marina. The cook crews, consisting of Ella, Jeremy, Nicholas, Ezra, and Olivia, started on breakfast bagels. Starting on the forward-most thwart, pairs of rowers took turns to taking breaks to eat their bagels.

June 30th was an eventful (and interesting) day for navigation. The boat crew had to navigate the boats with no wind aiding us and the searing sun on our faces. We had to row through a gnarly current, but we eventually made our way through the obstacles. Bear longboat hit a fat Tokyo drift singing Moana on our way to the docks (vocabulary courtesy of Camden and Ben).

Seeing land that marked the end of our trip sparked excitement and elation as we docked at Cap Sante Marina. A lot of seals popped their heads out of the water to bid us goodbye from the sea. Once docked, we stepped off of the boat just in time for Tony to catch a surprising number of sea jellies. After our short break, we got back on our boats for one last circle time with our individual boat crews. Under the exhausting heat, we briefly went over challenges that we overcame, what we did for each other as a group, and what we would remember the most on the longboats.

The highlight of the day was when Miles fell into the ocean. He walked around the side of the boat to put a bag down and fell into the sea due to faulty footing. Upon touching the surface of the water, he let out a screech saying, “Yay! I fell into the ocean!”.

The Townshend and Bear crews came together to cart all of the gear off the longboats, marking the beginning of a long three hours of cleanup to follow. All 17 of us split up into two groups: one that would clean out the boat, and one that would clean all of the equipment that had been taken on the trip. The boat crew worked diligently to scrub the boat with seawater, hosed off and pumped the bilges, vacuumed the whole boat, and picked up miscellaneous celery. The land crew, on the other hand, worked on cleaning dry bags, dishes, and rain gear. We stuffed sleeping bags into each other and distributed the personal gear. After a fashionably late lunch at 1:00 PM, we did our last duffel shuffle and loaded our gear into the vans. Everyone then wrote evaluations for the trip after everything was packed.

For our final step, the Townshend group helped get the longboat onto the trailer of the manager’s car. The Bear crew walked in the nice weather to the boat lift, where we watched Townshend get raised out of the water. With the longboat secured, we began our goodbyes, thanking all of the instructors for an amazing five days. We then loaded onto the Salish Sea Sciences vans, where we headed to the ferry landing. With time to kill waiting for the ferry, some people enjoyed the view or took walks along the beach. When the ferry finally was ready to board, we got out of the vans and headed upstairs, where many people took well deserved naps or sat around having conversations.

The ferry landed at Friday Harbor, and the vans unloaded, giving everyone in the Salish Seas Sciences program a wave of relief as we pulled into the Spring Street International School parking lot. In a frenzy, everyone grabbed their gear and raced to take showers and do their laundry. The rest of the day was used to rest. Dinner was lasagna with salad and garlic bread; a great way to mark the beginning of our more extravagant dorm life! The lasagna was amazing and had a meat option, causing the non-vegetarians to rejoice.

The rest of the evening was spent lounging around the dorms and getting ready for bed, ending a long and busy day.