Day 121: Bay View, WA to Shaw Island, WA

August 11, 2011

A 116-mile day leads to great sleep. I also rest better knowing that all of the tough riding and long days are behind me. I have almost a week to reach the coast and now I can take my time getting there.

The ride to the ferry in Anacortes is perfect, with sunshine filtering through high clouds and a cool breeze blowing in from the west off the water. During part of it I pedal just above a back corner of the bay on what used to be a railroad trestle, dodging pieces of shells left behind by birds who drop them from the air to bust the shells open and get to the goods inside. All around seagulls cry out, and with the tide taking the water down to its lowest point the acres of exposed pea-green seaweed raise a big, fishy smelling stink as they bake in the sun.

Everywhere I turn inside the ferry's upper decks I find madness: packed seating areas, screaming kids, overly tanned young women talking about how they bought three wedding dresses because they just couldn't decide. But Washington State ferries are huge and most people can't stand the cold wind, so I'm able to head down to the car deck and find a quiet corner in the sun.

The rippled blue water sparkles in the sun as it speeds by less than ten feet below. I look out at the jagged shorelines of nearby islands, the white trails of wake left behind by passing boats, the million-dollar mansions that peek out from the trees, and the last hazy bits of fog that hang over Cattle Pass to the south. When I was younger, my mom and dad and I would spend two or three weeks every summer traveling around the San Juan Islands on a boat, staying a night or two at anchor in an isolated harbor or tied to a dock before heading off somewhere else. Seeing the same islands, smelling the salty air, and squinting through the glare off the water brings back a flood of wonderful memories. I hope that never changes.

Eventually the ferry starts to turn from north to west and makes an arc around the edge of Brown Island. The farther it goes, the more clearly I can see the sailboat masts, the bright white yachts, the float planes, and the collection of buildings perched on a hill that signal the arrival into Friday Harbor. This was always one of the most exciting moments on vacation when I was a kid, because Friday Harbor is the only town of any size in the San Juans—and that meant pizza, candy, baseball cards, and Matchbox cars. Decades later I still hope it means at least pizza and candy.

I sit on a rock wall overlooking the marina for hours and watch the big boats, the small boats, and all of the boats in between drop anchor, fill up on fuel, and speed away to somewhere more remote. Later I fuel myself on pizza slices (yes!) at a New York-style pizzeria that charges more than any place in Midtown Manhattan, and then walk the docks and stare up at yachts so expensive that they're worth more than many Americans will earn in their entire lifetime.

As the evening rolls around the wind dies to nothing and the boats at anchor in the harbor all start to point in different directions. It seems the perfect metaphor for my lazy and wandering afternoon. But I wouldn't want it any other way. From the time the riding got tough in Georgia, all the way through to yesterday night, the San Juan Islands have always been my happy place—the distant goal that I held up in my mind as a reminder that things could and would get better, and that even if a particular hour or day or week kicked my ass I had something amazing to look forward to. Now I'm here and it's every bit as sweet as I imagined all of the dozens of time along the way. There's no reason to rush through any of it.

I wander back to the ferry and return to the water as the sun makes its way down. Seagulls float alongside in the breeze created by the boat's movement and I get lost again in all of the things that churn up memories: red and green navigation markers mounted on pilings, olive green-colored patches of kelp, seals poking their shiny gray and spotted brown heads just above the surface of the water, tiny coves occupied by only one sailboat, and Mount Constitution looming over everything.

My bike is the only thing with wheels to roll off the ferry when it reaches Shaw Island, population 200. I pedal over gently rolling hills and past deer grazing in fields for a couple of miles before heading down a gravel road to a county park that sits along the shore of a protected and pristine bay. The tents set up next to mine are occupied by two sisters, Julie and Kathy; Kathy's kids, Bryce and Spencer; and a tennis ball-obsessed Retriever named Kaz. They invite me to make smores with them next to a roaring campfire just before nightfall and I'm happy to accept the conversation, the challenge of perfectly toasting a marshmallow, and the chance to take in the smoke and smell of burning wood. This trip hasn't lacked many things, but campfires are one of them.

Every so often, under the light of a full moon, I hear waves crashing on the rocky shore. Herons also call out to each other from across the bay. And a couple of times a ferry passes by in the adjacent channel, rumbling and clanking like a seagoing freight train. But each noise eventually stops, leaving in its wake the most pure and beautiful silence.

Today's ride: 21 miles (34 km)
Total: 6,286 miles (10,116 km)

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