Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | T | The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR)

San Juan Splendor.

Article Excerpt
Byline: Bob Welch The Register-Guard

DEER HARBOR, Wash. - After four days of sailing in Washington's San Juan Islands, you return to Fern Ridge Lake like the wide-eyed farm boy who's been to the big city.

It's not that you don't love your home pool, but you've been to sailors' heaven, where that splash off the port side isn't a bass but an orca whale.

Where the water is deep blue instead of chocolate milk.

Where you're not zig-zagging on a 14-square-mile lake that has one island and an average depth of 11 feet, but a roughly 400-square-mile swath where you're almost always in at least 100 feet of sea water, sometimes five times that. And it's deep blue and green.

The San Juans bring to mind that line from David Crosby's song "Leeshore" - " ... there's nothing more to see / Than a hundred thousand islands flung like jewels upon the sea ... ."

Actually, the northeast Washington wonder is home to only about 200 islands, but you get the idea. The islands are clustered off the northwestern Washington coastline, west of Anacortes and northeast of Victoria, B.C.

"The San Juans are just a terrific place to cruise," says Jim Skeen of Eugene, who has sailed the area with his wife, Patricia - they're retired teachers - for more than 30 years, most...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!