Day 60 – June 2

Sean and Carla hosted a breakfast of egg mcmuffins under beautiful blue skies and warming temperatures. Our destination for the day was Port Townsend, only 2 hours away so we set out at a leisurely pace with several stops along the way, still within the boundaries of the National Park, to check if there was a fishing opportunity. One such spot, Crescent Lake, was a beautiful clear 12 mile long lake with a maximum depth of 600 feet. I saw a large trout swim under the wharf with the sign no fishing posted on it. Like rattlesnakes who knew fish could read.

Crescent Lake

Further down the road that hugged the shore of Crescent Lake we stopped at a pull off to try the fishing from shore but to no avail. We arrived at Port Townsend early afternoon and the first order of business was to drop into the visitors information centre where the two volunteers bombarded us with suggestions for our afternoon that would have taken three days to execute. Lunch at Finns on the waterfront was recommended and following our various meals we agreed, the food being all the more savoury accompanied by views of the various pleasure craft that were plying the harbour in the full sun and light winds.

Port Townsend is a small port town with numerous interesting craft shops, clothing stores, even antique auto parts along its main streets. Being Sunday many of the stores closed at 5:00, curtailing what could have been a much longer session of browsing. As it was, just looking into the windows of some of the stores was great entertainment. Unimpeded access to the shoreline provided great views of the ocean at each cross street. After a brief planning session in the BRT we decided that we would take the next ferry (6:45) from Port Townsend to Whidbey Island, reducing our travel distance to Seattle, our next port of call – so to speak – for tomorrow.

Port Townsend

The posted 40 minute ferry crossing seemed shorter as the weather was beautiful and every vantage point from the top deck provided a view worth participating in.

Port Townsend from the ferry

We planned to stay at the Fort Casey State Park which as it turns out was within a stones throw of the ferry dock on Whidbey Island. Stuck on a spit of grassland with few serviced sites, no real amenities, and untreed sites we were surprised that on a Sunday night we were lucky to find two sites available, only one of which was serviced. Personally I failed to see the attraction of sitting along the shore in lawn chairs watching the ferry pass by – possibly an acquired taste. As we were all tired and still full from a late and large lunch we retired early passing on our usual nighttime campfire.