Entries about authenticity

First of all, a note about checking in on Day 8: Our host had mentioned that, despite the recent legalization of marijuana in Washington, there were no legal distributors of it on the island. Catherine said "we were wondering about that" since we had been talking about the law and how it would work. However, our host seemed to think that we meant that we were interested in purchasing marijuana (to be clear, we were not). It was difficult to convince the host that we weren't interested, however. She repeatedly apologized that she didn't know any dealers, but encouraged us to go in to one of the pubs and ask around if we really needed to find one. But, she cautioned, we shouldn't smoke anything at all in the house. Despite Catherine's repeated assurances that we weren't interested in buying or smoking marijuana, and that we certainly wouldn't be smoking anything in the house, the host seemed to genuinely feel bad that she couldn't help us find any marijuana.

We went for a walk on the beach in the morning. The tide was out, and it was amazing how much larger the beach has gotten. Also, where it had previously been just pebbles, the beach now had quite a bit of sand. It was interesting to see the change, especially since the waves are basically non-existent and the tide is thus extremely evident (the waves are probably much bigger outside of the very sheltered sounds and bays around the island.)

Waiting to go out. We went with Outer Islands Charters, which guarantees whale sightings. If you don't see a whale they will take you out again. However, not all whales are orcas, and we really wanted to see orcas, so we were encouraged that the company seems to advertise exclusively with orcas.

We wish we could include more pictures of the whales, but the pictures could never do the experience justice. We found a pod of transient orcas in between Orcas and Jones island, and travelled with them up Presidents Channel for about two hours. At times they were close enough to the boat to hear them breathing. It was a small family of five orcas. The matriarch, T-65A (nicknamed Lumpy) had four of her children. Orcas have babies about once every four years (Lumpy has more children than average) and one was a tiny baby. When
they would surface to breath, each whale would arch out of the water. The larger whales would take some time to do this, but the little baby would arch over in a second. It was truly amazing to see these creatures and hear about their intelligence. We both feel that we picked the right charter company, and that the experience was a dream come true.

Us on the boat after seeing whales!

The White Horse Irish pub in Eastsound. Beautiful views of the sound and the neighboring islands. Daniel felt like this was a very authentic Irish pub. On a remote island, simple food, a real menu item called "toasted cheese and chips," and a perfect ocean view.

The beer recommended by the waitress is called Irish Death. It sounds dangerous.

SummerTime plums from Reedley, California at the store on Orcas Island (for any readers that don't know, we get all our summer stone fruit from a SummerTime grower between Kingsburg and Reedley.

Some views of the Tiny House from outside and inside. It was cozy and interesting, and it was great having our own private beach.

To any of our botanically-inclined readers, what is this flower? (Present-time spoiler: it looks a lot like what Butchart Gardens calls foxglove. However, when we described it to the people there they said it was more likely bluebell. Looking at pictures, we think it's foxglove.

The log on the beach where we were able to get phone service. We referred to it as "logging on."

Next entry, our journey to Anacortes and Victoria.