By Anisa, Orrin, Isabelle, and Violet
Ringing met us as we awoke to start a new day. Many alarms and sleepy faces rose from bed covers as everyone headed down for a horribly early 7am breakfast with 30 minutes until the vans needed to be loaded. Today, we headed to Orcas Island via the ferry for some much-needed R&R after many hours of project work time (some having more fun than others). It was an interesting morning that led into an amazing day hiking, eating, and swimming.
First, we loaded into the vans to drive onto the ferry; this was followed by around an hour in the van and then even more time in the ferry, where 3 stops were made. Although that might sound unfortunate, the time was spent quite peacefully; some people worked on puzzles while others chatted, looking at the view. We even saw some baby seagulls and a harbor seal!
After taking a tour of the islands, we arrived at our destination for the day: Orcas Island. A wonderful small town with major beach vibes greeted us while we drove through town for our next activity. This activity consisted of a short hike around the only known salmon spawning location in the San Juan Islands. The water looked gorgeous and the hike was very pleasant with the forest surrounding us and nothing but lunch and swimming to look forward to.
Speaking of lunch, after the hike, we made our way back to the vans and made our way to one of the most beautiful views on the island: Mount Constitution. A windy road later, we were at the mountains’ summit and the highest point in all of the islands. We ate lunch quickly while bald eagles and hawks flew around and above us. Then, we prepared for the highlight of the whole day. It was time to swim.
We arrived at one of Orcas Islands many lakes. After some inflating of paddle boards, complaining about cold water and splashing around in the water we headed to our final location. Some of us headed around the lake on foot (with some having better visibility than others) while others paddled to the location. No matter how we got there we all arrived at a bridge which spanned the lake. We wasted no time, we put our stuff down, ran to the bridge, climbed to the edge and JUMPED!. Laughter and the splash of water could be heard from all of us. We spent the time exploring the area, swimming and jumping from the bridge. The travel back to the vans was no less chaotic. How do four people on one paddleboard get across a lake is a question that has now been answered: slowly but surely, with a lot of flailing about.
After a long, fun day we were all ready to head back the Friday Harbor. The ferry ride back was entertaining as the first one with plenty of puzzles and gorgeous views to admire. The day ended with a great dinner and relaxing free time.