We’re about due for another night at a dock so we can enjoy some long showers and, more importantly, do some laundry. Our destination today was the town of Sidney, just a couple of hours away.
As I updated the map I’m keeping of our route, I noticed that it’s getting a little confusing with all the backtracking and crisscrossing. Sidney stands out a little more on its own. It’s a good sized town, familiar to many Washingtonians because it’s the terminus for the ferry that goes from Anacortes, through the San Juans, and into Canada. It’s not such a popular city itself, but it’s a short drive or bus ride into Victoria from here and that’s the main draw. However, for boaters it is a draw in itself because it has a very nice marina and lots of little shops to peruse on the main downtown street.
We cruised uneventfully, another beautiful morning, but as we got closer and to a vantage point from which we could see the San Juans again, we saw a thick blanket of fog shrouding them. For reasons we don’t understand, we’ve never had fog in the Gulf Islands but the San Juans often develop fog this time of year and today was a fine example of that. We’re not sure if it will stick around or affect the rest of our trip, since we’ll be heading back to the US in a couple of days; we will just have to take it a day at a time. We don’t do fog in the Elsa, after one attempt many years ago that turned out fine but aged us several years in the process.
Sidney’s a charming town that enjoys its flowers – there are gardens and baskets everywhere. Maybe they are extending the theme of the famous Buchardt Gardens, a tourist attraction for people from all over the world that is about 20 minutes from here. Whatever the reason, a bright sun shining on the flowers makes this a very colorful city. Even the marina gets into the act; each slip has a hanging basket fore and aft, as do all the walkways.
As I updated the map I’m keeping of our route, I noticed that it’s getting a little confusing with all the backtracking and crisscrossing. Sidney stands out a little more on its own. It’s a good sized town, familiar to many Washingtonians because it’s the terminus for the ferry that goes from Anacortes, through the San Juans, and into Canada. It’s not such a popular city itself, but it’s a short drive or bus ride into Victoria from here and that’s the main draw. However, for boaters it is a draw in itself because it has a very nice marina and lots of little shops to peruse on the main downtown street.
We cruised uneventfully, another beautiful morning, but as we got closer and to a vantage point from which we could see the San Juans again, we saw a thick blanket of fog shrouding them. For reasons we don’t understand, we’ve never had fog in the Gulf Islands but the San Juans often develop fog this time of year and today was a fine example of that. We’re not sure if it will stick around or affect the rest of our trip, since we’ll be heading back to the US in a couple of days; we will just have to take it a day at a time. We don’t do fog in the Elsa, after one attempt many years ago that turned out fine but aged us several years in the process.
Sidney’s a charming town that enjoys its flowers – there are gardens and baskets everywhere. Maybe they are extending the theme of the famous Buchardt Gardens, a tourist attraction for people from all over the world that is about 20 minutes from here. Whatever the reason, a bright sun shining on the flowers makes this a very colorful city. Even the marina gets into the act; each slip has a hanging basket fore and aft, as do all the walkways.
We walked through town and along the aptly named “East View Drive” where there is a nice view of the water and San Juans to the east. (The fog had burned off by the time we took this picture.)
Then it was back to the marina for laundry time, where we coincidentally ran into Loren and Erin again – it turned out they had come here and taken a slip two piers over from us. They are starting their return trip, planning to be back in Seattle in about four days. A barbeque and after dinner walk through town to the grocery store wound down the day.
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