Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Trip #3 Anacortes to Guemes Island




We realized we'd been lagging on the ferry challenge and Friday was predicted to be sunny and nice...a good ferry day. We decided the night before to do the Guemes Island Ferry from Anacortes. We also thought we would take our bikes this time, even though the round trip fare increased from $2 for a walk on to a whopping $3 for a bicyclist.

The Guemes Island Ferry is a Skagit County Ferry. It operates from downtown Anacortes (about 40 miles from Bellingham). The BIG ferry dock (ferries to the San Juan Islands and
Sidney, BC) is about 3 miles west of town. Guemes Island is about 8 square miles with a population of about 500. There is only the one business on the island...a general store.

I cashed in our change bin Friday morning. This is the yogurt container I keep on my dresser that I throw my change into IF I ever have any. This time...$46!

We checked out the restaurants in Anacortes for lunch and decided on the Greek Islands...the #1 rated restaurant in town...












True to form, we arrived at the ferry dock just in time to board. The ferry holds about 20 cars. It takes 8 minutes to unload and reload and 5 minutes to cross. In this case, even if we had missed this ferry, it would be back in 13 minutes.















It was a beautiful day, so we stayed on deck while the all girl crew (including the captain) finished loading.















In minutes we were off leaving Anacortes behind.

Enroute, we quizzed a local bike rider on the ferry coming back from work in Anacortes. She pulled out a map of the island and showed us all the roads...quite a few for such a little island.

We disembarked and headed east on the road/bike trail that ran along the water.


We had a short, but interesting ride. Guemes Island is primarily a "bedroom community" for Anacortes and other nearby cities as well as weekend getaway second homes for city dwellers. We did find apple orchards in our tour of the southern part of the island, however. Rural, scenic, open spaces, relatively inexpensive real estate. Pretty inviting!

We headed home through the Skagit Valley. It is a great time of the year to be in the valley. The tulips and orchards are blooming.

We took a side trip to Samish Island on the way home. As it turns out, Samish Island ISN'T an island. In the early 20th century, dikes were built on a narrow channel between the mainland and the island. During low tide, the channel was just mud, but after the dikes were built it became dry land all the time. This reclaimed land is used for dairy farming and is the way on and off the "island".


One more ferry down, about 10 more to go!

1 comment:

  1. Hi there,
    My name is Jane and I'm with Dwellable.
    I was looking for blogs about Samish Island to share on our site and I came across your post...If you're open to it, shoot me an email at jane(at)dwellable(dot)com.
    Hope to hear from you soon!
    Jane

    ReplyDelete