My Orcas Island

Ok, so this is where I grew up. Can you understand my obsession?

The video is only 2 and a half minutes long. What better way to spend two minutes?!

A Long Post About A Secret Island

En route to the island. A friendly face.

This summer, for the first time ever in my life, I visited an island in Washington State which I had never before had the opportunity to visit. Now don’t get me wrong, there a many islands in the San Juan archipelago that I have not been to – after all, there are 172 named islands and a person without a boat of their own can’t really be blame for only visiting a handful of them.

Do you see what I see? Not a great photo, but still cool to see. Even in the era of a mere 400 pairs of Bald Eagles in the entire USA, the San Juans had a good percentage of those eagles. We’d see them often from our house.

I’ve been to all of the major ones which have ferry service: Orcas (of course I put that one first), San Juan Island, Shaw and Lopez. Oh, wait. I might not have been to Shaw, come to think of it, I can’t remember for sure. I know I was on Lopez a few times as a kid with the library kid’s program doing puppet shows over at their library, and I’ve been to San Juan several times as well. Beyond that I’ve been to Sucia, Matia, and Jones, all of which are entirely owned by the Washington State Parks. Oh, and I’ve been to Indian Island (formerly known as Jap Island – they went from one politically incorrect name to another). Out of 172, that’s not very many.

Boo and her cousin, checking out the beach.

Well, now I can add another island to that list. Only I can’t name it for you. Why, you ask?

Because the inhabitants don’t want to be known.

This island has no ferry service. You can only get there by plane or small boat. Or big boat with a smaller boat thrown off the side.  It has no electricity, though many people do have generators and/or solar panels. It has no stores. No paved roads. No internet cables, phone lines, annoying telephone poles that mess up one’s view. Some of the people do have cell phones and wireless internet.

The island does have a public school with 8 students, which I THINK only goes up through 8th grade. Most families seem to either move off the island when their kids are in high school or send them to live with friends or family elsewhere. Either that or they send them to boarding schools. The school is under the overview of the Orcas school district, and back when I was a student on Orcas students on this mysterious island used to send their kids to Orcas every day for school, though no one seems to do that anymore. They have a one room schoolhouse with a nice library and a separate computer building that the locals can pay a monthly fee to use.

A not great photo of the schoolhouse. It’s hard to take photos from the back of a moving truck – even if it is moving slowly!

There is an airstrip on the island and a post office though the mail boat only comes three days a week. There are several unmanned farmer’s stands, working on the honor system. And the farms sell their wares at farmer’s markets on other islands. They have many social gatherings – I think some sort of craft fair had been going on when we were there. I know they have picnics and musical gatherings and poetry readings – lovely, “old-fashioned” stuff like that. (I wish I had more opportunities to do things like that!)

My son found a message in a bottle within minutes of arriving on the beach. No, we can’t show you the note because it would give away the name of the island! But it was a really cool discovery!

They do have a self-governing system. Two islanders are part-time county road workers and they take care of the few roads that are considered county roads. There are no road signs, in fact, no signs whatsoever. There is a public county dock that anyone on the island can use. You can’t tie your boat up to it but you can load and unload there and then you have to anchor out or, like the residents, have your own buoy that is safely anchored. There is only one other dock on the island and it’s privately owned. No more are allowed by the islands own self-governing system. Here’s another interesting fact: only 1 indoor toilet is allowed per household, though you may have as many outhouses as you may like! This may not be strictly followed, but it’s the official law.

The necessary outhouse.

The private dock. It’s taken in in the fall and not put back out until late spring.

Also on the rule books is that there is to be no sharing of your own utilities with the neighbors, so if you own solar panels or a generator, it’s yours alone. My insider says that he knows this rule is broken, but for whatever reason, it’s the official stand. The police will visit the island, but only if they have to, which is not very often. An ambulance of sorts is manned by islanders who have been trained and you can buy Med-flight memberships for absolute emergencies. One very cool thing about that is that the islanders will pay for a family to be members if they can’t afford it. There is a tanker truck to haul water for big fires and there are three trailers with water to hook-up to which are stationed around the island at various points.

See the solar panels?

If residents have propane heaters, refrigerators, hot water heaters, or stoves, they have to haul their own gas and propane in their boat or have the island’s water taxi pick it up for them for a nominal fee. The mail delivery guy who lives on the island will also pick up groceries or pharmacy supplies or hardware store stuff for residents.

This island is about 3600 acres. It has about 100 permanent (year-round) residents and about quite a few more houses that are used only seasonally. The population actually doubles in the summer, especially on the weekends. It has one main road which kinda loops around but doesn’t even cover the entire island. It is navigable at speeds not to exceed about 10mph. Not because they like to make up rules like that but because to go any faster is to risk life and limb and gas tank. The roads are full of potholes and surprising bumps, twists and turns and gorgeous views.

The island vehicles are, for fairly obvious reasons, old beaters. If you’re going to ship a car or truck over, you’re not going to ever want to do it again. Many of the car’s doors have long-since disappeared and one head light is quite the norm. My insider borrowed a truck one night years back, and had to use a flashlight after dark – they started out with a headlight and then it shorted out. Oh, and by the way, the road is one lane only.

This means that you can drive along it, your windows rolled down on your old beater truck, and literally grab a hold of the vegetation along the road if you so desire. The evergreens, salal bushes, Scotch Broom, Oregon Grape, ferns, daisies, blackberries and salmonberries are close enough to pick a bouquet. And you’re going slowly enough to maybe even fill your bucket for a blackberry cobbler!

Of course all this one-lane, super-slow driving means that if you run into another car coming your way you – or he – have to back up through said twists and turns and bumps and holes until you can find a place in the road where you can pull off. There are quite a few turn-offs, but still, one needs to be good at backing…which I am not.

Let’s just say that if I was driving there I’d most likely be dead pretty quick.

Most people, for obvious reasons, get around on bicycles. Which is another reason to drive slowly. There also may be chickens in the road. Or bunnies. Or goats. But there will never be deer in the road, as there are none on the island, nor are there raccoons, squirrels, mice, opossums or skunks. There are rats, though. Plenty of those. And there are owls. Lots of them. They must eat the rats. And the frogs.

Most of the residents of this island are there because they want to get away. To do their own thing. To live a sustainable lifestyle and simplify their lives. Some are there just because their anti-social. Some want to have a get-away which truly is away from everything. Those ones often are the seasonal folks who spend their winters in Seattle or elsewhere, earning the money they need to keep up their get-away.

There are no tourists. None. Tourists are not welcome. They can’t be kept off legally, from the county road, anyway, but they sure are not smiled upon. This is not a place for a casual visit. This is a lifestyle.

Lest you think that the beach is full of people, let me hasten to assure you that this is all our crowd. the beach was completely empty.

Turns out, however, that if you have an “in”…you can take a peek. So I did. With someone I know well and who, after going there for several years, finally invited me to visit. I say “finally” without bitterness! The home they have there is not winterized and so they can only be there for a few months out of the year and even then only on the weekends, due to the annoyances of real life. Even if they could be there and stay warm with their woodstove, just getting there risks your life in the swells and winds of a Puget Sound winter. There was a return trip, a year or two ago, during which this person truly wasn’t sure h’d make it. When he did, it was time to put the boat up for the winter. No more trips back and forth. No more tempting fate.

Imagine – in weather like that – what it’s like to be a permanent resident of the island! The kids who travel daily across the water for high school have to have a place to stay on the other island where they go to school. Either that or they’re homeschooled. The residents have to have enough food to make it through storms that can last for days and bad weather that lasts for weeks. They have to plan ahead, can their veggies, pray for enough protein to come their way. This is not an easy life. But it is the life they have chosen. And, by golly, they want to be left alone to do it on their own.

And so I will not name the island. But how could I resist telling you about it?!

By the way, if you know the name of the island I’m writing about…please keep it to yourself. Thank you.

PS – Thanks to my secret source for much of the information on this post!!

Can you tell what this is? It’s an ancient buoy – very cool!

Ten points if you know what these are. They’re sitting on the buoy. If you compare the two photos you can see how amazingly huge they are. Never have I seen such big barnacles in my life!

The Beaches of San Juan County – Part 1

Okay, so to be truly “The Beaches of San Juan County” I’d need to have a much better sampling of various islands, plus I’m including one beach from Island County as well, but while we were on vacation, we visited a total of 8 beaches, and I loved every minute of it!  Most of the beaches were on Orcas Island, but one was on another island, a much smaller and rather secretive island, which I am not going to name but which will feature – nameless – in an upcoming post!

This was the beachiest trip that I’d been on for years! I have too many pictures to make this just one post – in fact, it will have to be even more than two.

Truly, I love beaches. Not the movie – though I liked that okay, much to my husband’s bewilderment – but the places. The physical, rocky, shores of the ocean.

Note I said “rocky”. I’m not as much of a fan of sandy shores.

I found, on our recent vacation on Orcas Island, Washington, that even though I grew up there, I’d forgotten – or, more likely, never spend much time thinking about the fact – that not all beaches are created the same. I mean, I knew about the basic difference in a sandy beach vrs. a rocky/stony beach, but it had been so many years since I’d been on any other sort of beach, that I’d forgotten that such a thing existed.

The first beach for your perusal today is a private beach on Orcas where we went (with permission!) to dig clams. And I’ll even give you my sister’s recipe for clam chowder that was absolutely the best I’ve ever had in my life.



No, not a beach you want to walk barefoot on!! You’d be cut to ribbons. Even my flipflops suffered a bit. The entire beach is like this – broken shells, barnacles, and yes, a few pieces of beach glass. But, apparently, the clams like it!

Basically the same, only an underwater shot. It’s clear water, isn’t it? That is, until you dig in on a clam search, then it’s murky – for a few minutes. It was a wonderful beach to go wading on, as you could see so much – many Dungeness and rock crabs (the big ones came out as the tide came in) and hermit crabs.

This beach was actually a cove, and for the whole half-circle the water was wonderful – and not even very cold, it was such a sunny and warm day.

Shellfish Identification Lesson #1: Nope. Not a clam. An oyster. Back into the water it goes. Yes, oysters are marvelous to eat, but not what we were after that day.

The tasty, delicious Butter Clams! It’s not a fast or easy way to get one’s dinner, but it’s worth it in the end. The pioneers on Orcas often supplemented their diets with clams – often to the point where their primary protein WAS clams. Can only imagine the time and effort that took.

My sister, my nephew and his family, oh, and Boo.

My two favorite Minnesota boys hard at work.

Even Boo got in on the hard work – for a while, anyway.

Sometimes it’s a group effort!

You have to dig quite deep to get to the good stuff.

Shellfish Identification Lesson #3: This is not a shellfish! At first I thought, “Oh, a rock that looks just like an egg!” And then I picked it up only to discover that it was an egg. A seagull? Not sure, but it did not make it into our take-home treasure box!!

The youngest member of our expedition did not enjoy herself as much as the rest of us. Her Uncle Sailboat King kept her occupied for a LONG time, further up the beach.

Baby starfish? Or just naturally that small always? Not sure.

Shellfish Identificatino Lesson #4: A Hairy Chiton, a mollusk – though not an edible one. At least, I assume it’s a shellfish. I’m no expert, so don’t quote me for a research paper on this! There’s a teeny Limpit in the hairs on his upper left.

Very gritty mud.

Shellfish Identification Lesson #5: This is a Cockle…yes, it’s a clam, and yes, I understand that it’s tasty, but apparently they’re a pain in the rear end to clean…so, we ditched all the cockles we dug up. Which, sadly, was rather a lot.

Sorry that this isn’t a better picture. Guess where we found this guy? INSIDE OF A CLAM! He must have gotten in when he was tiny and then could never get out – or chose not to. He was practically shell less and albino and fat and he couldn’t really walk too well. We let him go into the water, but I have a feeling that his life was not going to be a long one. Fascinating, though…

A beach is a perfect place for a wee boy to get wet and explore and have a marvelous time!!

AND NOW, WHAT YOUR MOUTH IS WATERING FOR: MY SISTER’S RECIPE FOR FABULOUS CLAM CHOWDER! (Is it as good with canned/jarred clams? Probably not, to be honest, but if you like chowder, why not give it a try?!!)

Here’s the e-mail I got from my Island-Living Sister:

My recipe for clam chowder –

Bring enough shovels! Dig clams! (Butter and/or Horse clams) Remove from shells, leaving the empties on the beach. Clean, making sure to slice the neck in half lengthwise down both valves to rinse it all out, keeping what liquid there is from the clams and grind! (You will not have all the liquor from the clams when you clean them on the beach.) Set aside.

I do it all in one big pot so you get the bacon stuck-on bits to later end up in the chowder.

Brown bacon, lots, remove to a paper towel to drain

Onion, chopped, added to the bacon grease until tender, remove to drain if you like

3 or 4 potatoes, diced to the size you want to eat. Put in the large pot. Add back in the onions if you took them out. Add your clam liquor if you have any. Cover with enough water to cover potatoes and onions. Bring to a boil until potatoes are almost done.

Add clams, 2 cups or more, or a couple of cans if you can’t dig your own clams!

Add 2 cans evaporated milk, or more if making quite a lot

Salt and pepper

Heat to almost a boil, and it should be done.

I, GRETCHEN, HAVE ONE CAVEAT TO ADD: IF YOU ARE CLEANING YOUR OWN CLAMS, YOU MUST HAVE A STRONG STOMACH! The smell is rather strong…and it’s all a little overwhelmingly beachy!! BUT…it does NOT taste like the beach at all. It’s marvelous!!!!!!!

MANY THANKS TO MY SISTER FOR ALL HER HARD CLEANING AND GRINDING AND COOKING WORK SO THAT WE COULD ALL ENJOY SUCH A WONDERFUL MEAL!!!!!!!!!!! My brother-in-law made fresh bread for us, too, which was also fantastic! I just wish I’d taken a picture of the finished product. I was so excited to eat that it never occurred to me!!!

PS – Be careful if you are ever clamming and/or oystering (is that a word?!) to check first on something called Red Tide, a potential lethal algae bloom in the water that effects shellfish and the people who eat them! Sadly, my nephew’s wedding this coming weekend was supposed to include 400 oysters…but, due to Red Tide, will include zero. So sad!!!