We got home after 1am from Alaska and got up early to unpack and repack for Orcas Island. We barely made it to the ferry (but barely counts!).

Orcas is where we celebrated our anniversary last year / found out I was pregnant / kayaked to the Wasp Islands and later that summer launched our kayaks to Sucia Island.

For those trips all we had was our kayak up top. Now we need the cargo box with our additional tiny paddler.

For our anniversary we stayed in the same place as last year, a cabin type hotel room (world mark) at Deer Harbor.

This time I wasn’t pregnant so I got to enjoy our deck hot tub and we got local salad makings and chocolate milk for an outdoor dinner.

A quick drive brought us to the south trail of turtleback mountain preserve (we stayed along the blue route, hiking counter-clockwise).

It was a beautiful hike on what turned out to be a hot and sunny day.

There’s some elevation gain! 931 feet to Ship Peek, which made it just difficult enough to feel we’d accomplished something and got a great view, without being too difficult for the slightly out of shape (Alex has been working a lot of hours to get our extra vacation time and I DID recently have a baby…).

 

Continue on Orcas here for kayaking with Kaya!