CATEGORY: SAILING
PHOTO: OLD ORCAS HOTEL

One of our favorite places to anchor in the San Juan Islands was near the ferry landing on Orcas Island.  This was the location of the old Orcas Hotel.  It was just across from where the ferries came majestically floating in from who knows where—maybe from the moon.  It had a restaurant with a wonderful cook.  There was a porch that wrapped around it on three sides, and there were tables on the porch so we could eat outside.  Along the lintels of the porch were hanging baskets of flowers interspersed with humming bird feeders.  And of course there were humming birds: hundreds of them.  Having lunch sitting on the porch of this hotel was like being in a Maxfield Parrish painting: sun sparkled blue waters, deep blue sky, puffy white clouds, other islands in the distance, delicious food on the table, flowers—and humming birds, humming birds everywhere.  It was the closest thing to an idyll I have ever experienced.