After our night in Deer Harbor we made a breakfast of Fried Potatoes and eggs, hauled up the anchor and headed out to the West Sound of Orcas Island. Milltown has a reciprocal agreement with the Orcas Island Yacht Club. When they visit Everett they can
Can I get a lift?
use the docks for free and when we visit Orcas Island we can use theirs for free. We pulled up to their dock that sits in about 20 feet of water. I expected the reciprocal dock to be busier, but there was only one boat there, New LAttitudes from Anacortes.
After securing the boat, we decided to start walking towards Eastsound. There was a Saturday farmers market we wanted to check out. The dock attendant in Deer Harbor told us the Island Shuttle didn’t start running until the end of June, so our only options for transportation around the island were rental car, taxi, or hitch hiking. Never ones to turn down an opportunity for anew experience, Nate started sticking his thumb out. We walked about a mile and a half before a car finally pulled over; a Prius driven by a nice older woman who was on her way to work at the bookshop in town. We were lucky
Walking through Eastsound
to get the ride because it was a lot farther than we thought! She told us the hitchhiking is the norm on the island and that if her dogs aren’t in the backseat she’ll always pick people up. The sheriff will even pick you up if you don’t mind getting locked in the backseat!
We made it into Eastsound and headed straight to the farmers market. It was pretty small with not much that interested us, so we kept walking up the main road. We came across a Lopez Winery tasting room, and since we had skipped out on that on Lopez,decided to have a taste. All the wines were pretty good. Some were even made better by using and aerator. She had us try a wine straight out of the bottle, and then poured another glass through the aerator. It was amazing how much better it tasted! But since we were trying to get rid of a lot of beer before entering
Natalie hitched a ride in the back of a rusty pickup truck.
Canada, we decided not to buy any wine. Feeling a little buzzed from the wine, we kept walking through town and checked out a few shops and finally settled in to the cozy island pub.
After a hitch back to the boat we met our neighbor, John, from New LAttitudes. His boat was a nice big cabin cruiser. We could definitely live on that thing, but wouldn’t be able to afford it unless we lived there for 20 years. It was cool to go aboard his boat and just hang out and talk because boating easily spans generations and styles, sail or power.