Charles Koh
Friday Harbor is an island retreat — especially during the months outside of summer. Less crowds. Less people. Less noise. It’s easy to forget the stresses of work and life as you cozy up to a fireplace and take a moment just to breathe. It’s your time to relax, unwind, and discover new adventures.
While visiting in the off season, It’s also important for you to bring a rain jacket and boots. We experience sun, clouds, and rain all in the same day. But despite what the weather may be, the landscape will always be picturesque — rain or shine.
On our weekend getaway, we stayed at Lakedale Resort. It was a beautiful property with over 80 acres and three lakes. Continental breakfast and omelets were especially prepared for hotel guests in the morning by the delightful MaryAnn who made you feel right at home. The resort offers a hotel, log cabins, a lake house, and camping. However, the campsites weren’t operating at the time. But will open soon…
Here’s a great concept! Camping in one of these canvas tents! This is called glamping. The resort provides everything in the tent in addition to breakfast and dinner!
After checking out the beautiful campground, went on a 2.5 hour boat adventure with Captain Hobbes Buchanan with San Juan Whales and Wildlife in search of whales. Although we didn’t find any whales that day, we did happen to see huge sea lions, eagles soaring in the air, and Mouflon sheep from Corsica on Spieden Island.
By this time, it started to sprinkle as we drove towards Roche Harbor on to our next adventure, the Westcott Bay Cider/San Juan Island Distillery, which was about 25 minutes away from the ferry terminal. By the time we made it to the distillery it was pouring down rain. The cider tasting was indoors and the gin tasting was under a shed so the rain didn’t bother us at all.
We started off with 3 types of hard cider, all of which I thoroughly enjoyed. Then we went on to the gin selection. I’m not a fan of gin, but I decided to give it a shot. It think we ended up trying four different types of gin, and we finished it off with a delicious lavender and wild rose liqueur. There were other types of liquor like brandy and vodka displayed for sale, which you could try first before buying. The tasting was free and of course we couldn’t resist but to buy a bottle or two or three…
For dinner we went to Coho Restaurant. I was glad that the rain had stopped. The meal was absolutely divine. Bold flavors, fresh ingredients and immaculate presentation skills. A restaurant worth ferrying over for.
