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San Juan Islands over Memorial Day - Scott and RaNae Schmidt

Over Memorial Day weekend, we loaded up the plane and headed to the San Juan Islands from Salt Lake City. About six months earlier, I found an ad in the back of Pilot Getaway Magazine for a cabin on Decatur Island, ¼ mile from a 2500’ grass strip. The cabin came with a gas-powered golf cart. So, around December, we booked our Memorial Day weekend and ended up inviting my brother-in-law, sister-in-law and niece.

I was excited about the trip but I had no idea how great this place really is. We plan to go back again. Without a doubt, it is our favorite flying destination so far. The San Juan Islands were made for pilots.

We left Salt Lake on Thursday afternoon with overcast skies and flew north to Burley, ID with our first stop at Nampa, ID. The winds were around 20 knots gusting to 28 just about right down the runway. It was a smooth flight and Paige (my 16-month old niece) who enjoyed watching ‘Finding Nemo’ on the first leg with chowing down on cheese.

San Juan Islands over Memorial Day - Scott and RaNae Schmidt

After our stop in Nampa, the skies started breaking and our next stop was Redmond, OR for fuel. Our plan was to stop in Redmond and fly to Seaside, OR right on the coast, but the weather was thick on the west side of the mountains so we decided to take a quick flight to Sisters, OR for the night. We had some great views of all the high peaks along the Cascades.

In Sisters OR, I called the Best Western and got us a couple of rooms and then started looking around for someone driving by who might give a ride to the motel. No luck, so I made a call back to the Hotel Manager and he graciously came over and picked us up. The rooms were incredible and I highly recommend this hotel if you are ever in the area. The airport is fun to land with a narrow but long runway. It is set between the trees and homes that make it a simply beautiful place to fly to and land. It is a private airport so there is a $10 landing fee.

We ate across the street that night and woke up the next morning to light rain. We fed the llamas that they have at the hotel waiting for the weather to lift. I still wanted to try and get to the coast but there was no way. The weather over the mountains was horrible and there was icing at the 8000 ft. level so IFR was out of the question. The weather was clear to the north so we decided to just go north and cut across the mountains east of Seattle. Our afternoon flight on Friday was beautiful and I can’t imagine a better flight to the islands.
We left Sisters around 1pm and headed north across the Columbia River Gorge (The Dalles airport) then to Ellensburg and followed I-90 to Seattle. The pass on I-90 is called Stampede Pass which has an ASOS that makes it nice to check weather. We had 3000 – 12000’ ceilings with 4000’ ceilings at Stampede Pass. I could hear people going over this pass as I started getting closer. I think Paige slept almost the whole way.

San Juan Islands over Memorial Day - Scott and RaNae Schmidt

As we came into Seattle, it was breathtaking as the cloud blanket met the mountain peaks. We flew over Arlington, over Naval Air Station Whidbey Island and then to Decatur Island. We would be landing at the Decatur Shores airport.

San Juan Islands over Memorial Day - Scott and RaNae Schmidt

The pattern at Decatur Shores is right traffic due to Center Island located just off the shores of Decatur Island. All the airports on the San Juan Islands use the same frequency, 128.25. We set up for right downwind, lowered the flaps and arrived on the islands. The RV-10 stopped in about half the length of the runway. This island is not friendly for go-arounds so you have to hit your speeds on final or go-around early.

Center Island on the bottom left and Decatur Island.

Turning Final at Decatur Shores

Decatur Island has nothing but one so-called convenient store with minimal food that is open 5 days a week from 12-5. They don’t even have garbage service so you have to take everything with you. (Although we were able to pay someone $10 to take ours for us.)

We dropped off our passengers and my wife and I took off for Friday Harbor for fuel and groceries. I love the power of these planes at sea level, it something we don’t get to feel living in Salt Lake City.

We landed in Friday Harbor and walked into town (10 min. walk) to King’s Market for groceries. Thank goodness there was taxi service back to the airport (we bought too much to carry back). They had carts at the airport for taking stuff to/from your plane. We headed back to Decatur Shores over Lopez Island, loaded up the golf cart with groceries, tied down the plane and headed for the cabin.

Friday Harbor

San Juan Islands over Memorial Day - Scott and RaNae Schmidt

Lopez Island

Right Base at Decatur Shores

Final Approach to 33 at Decatur Shores

San Juan Islands over Memorial Day - Scott and RaNae Schmidt

Cabin we rented with the sunset and ocean views

San Juan Islands over Memorial Day - Scott and RaNae Schmidt

We visited Friday Harbor, Roche Harbor and Orcas (Eastsound) while we were at the islands. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to travel around the island. I had many recommendations to get a car at Orcas Island but we just ran out of time. We enjoyed exploring our island and walking on the shores. I knew we would be back so we didn’t want to make it too busy.

Friday Harbor – We enjoyed Friday Harbor. It was busy but they had great shops, places to buy mussels and crabs right on the street with plenty of restaurants. It was fun watching the seaplanes come in and out. The ferry runs to/from Friday Harbor if you want to drive.

I had to throw this shot in to prove to Stein that I do advertise for him!

Roche Harbor – I had read that Roche Harbor had famous donuts. We decided to have breakfast there on Sunday. This was incredible and I would seriously consider staying here when we go back. There was a $10 landing fee but the approach was worth $100. You come in right over the harbor and town, make a small right turn and park on the grass with a 5-minute walk to town. They manufactured lime from limestone at Roche Harbor in the late 1800’s using the kilns you can see in the pictures. We enjoyed the breakfast at Roche Harbor, walked around their gardens which were amazing and spent some time looking at the yachts on the docks. Canada is about 10 miles away from Roche Harbor and it is the main customs port for arriving boats.

History or Roche Harbor
http://www.rocheharbor.com/aboutus_history.html

View of Roche Harbor on Final