Page Updated: August 13, 2023
San Juan Island
Friday Harbor - San Juan Island WA
One of 172 islands in the Pacific Northwest located between Washington State and Vancouver Island, Canada, San Juan Island belongs to an archipelago known as the San Juan Islands. The islands of Lopez, Orcas, and San Juan are the largest of the group, and they thrive on tourism while also being favorite destinations for Washington locals.
The only way to the islands is by ferry or plane. And once there, common tourist activities of shopping, dining, camping, hiking, biking, and paddling can be found. And since orca whales live in the San Juan Islands year round, whale watching is popular year round.
Although we had a day to experience a little bit of San Juan Island, the islands are worthy of more than a day visit.
Our journey to the island began at the Washington State Ferry in Anacortes. We parked at the ferry terminal and chose passenger fares, but visitors also have the option of vehicle transport. The ferry ride is about an hour. With embarking & disembarking times, tack on another half hour.
We had the forethought to pre-book our chosen sea kayaking excursion, and we’d made it to our morning ferry ride in plenty of time; but we had poor planning the rest of the day. Once we got to the island, we were able to orient ourselves, find the location of our tour meetup location, step into a handful of shops along Spring Street, and squeeze in a bite at the Blue Water Bar and Grill before meeting our tour group.
Things we didn’t take into account were it was a Sunday, we had to work around the ferry schedule, and we underestimated the tourist count. This led to unappreciated rushing about and a lack of time to visit interesting places like the Whale Museum.
Despite what turned into a hectic morning, our excursion experience was fun. We booked with Crystal Seas Kayaking and launched from Mosquito Bay.
The tour should’ve taken us to Smugglers Cove on western San Juan Island and if we were lucky see orcas and bald eagles, but the choppy waters had the entire group fighting waves and doing circles.
We never made it to the cove, but we were able to see a piece of Canada in the distance before retreating back to the calmer waters of the bay.
Fighting the ocean for nearly 2 hours brings on an appetite. And once back in Friday Harbor, we ate a hearty dinner and enjoyed local beer at the Cask and Schooner Public House & Restaurant. Over the course of the day we actually dined at 3 restaurants - this was by far our favorite.
Update: Cask and Schooner permanently closed Oct 2022
Before catching the last ferry of the day, we had just enough time after dinner to stop at Island Wine Company and enjoy sampling the local wines. The shop also offers cute tourist merch and is located near the ferry dock, so it was a great place to cap off our San Juan Island experience.
scenes from San Juan Island
-b&b
Snohomish
Deception Pass
