Deer Harbor - Cancelled!
For 14 summers, one of our favorite things has been spending a few days in Deer Harbor and then watching the fireworks on July 3rd. The next morning we scoot over to Roche Harbor for more fun events and fireworks. So we left Friday Harbor in plenty of time to find a good spot in Deer and get settled in. There were a number of large boats already ahead of us and with the -4 tides, everyone hovered in the middle with smaller boats filling in the gaps.
The next day, it was time to go ashore and head to town. Nope 😩 - no more scheduled shuttle bus transporation on Orcas, it has to be reserved … and they only take 12 passengers or more. We found a ‘taxi’ service but the cost was over $25 per person, one way. Wow - how things had changed and it was so sad. So we decided to just take the fishing boat over to Eastsound Bay and tie up to the small visitor dock, which can be a gamble. The bay had a number of boats and as expected, the dingy dock was packed full. With creativity at it’s best, we were able to rearrange some and create a spot big enough for the back half of our boat to fit in and it worked.
First stop - this is a must. No matter what time of day, there is always time for a cup of coffee and an almond croissant. Delicious!!!
After returning from Eastsound, we noticed the larger boats were gone, and many of the smaller boats were also leaving. This seemed very odd so I called the marina, and sure enough, there are no more fireworks at Deer Harbor. When checking the website, I failed to see the announcements were from previous years. It was so sad to see such a fun tradition come to an end. So we joined the crowd and headed to Roche Harbor.