San Juan Islands

FRIDAY HARBOR, Wash. - Two dozen hardy travelers were clustered near me on the top deck of a 114-foot ferry, most of us shivering under cloudy skies as a colorful mosaic of water and land slid by the vessel, the Victoria Clipper III. We were sailing through the San Juan Islands, an archipelago of hundreds of isles between mainland Canada, Vancouver Island and Washington state's northwestern coast. As we cruised north from Seattle, rolling hills were replaced by dark green forests and rocky bluffs that overlooked fiord-like inlets.

Get out and enjoy nature? Oh please. It's a lot of hard work, and what do you get for it? A backache from lugging all the equipment, a sleeping bag with a broken zipper, and who forgot the matches? Wanderlust Hospitality has a better idea: glamorous camping, or glamping, this summer in three state parks on Washington's San Juan Islands. To celebrate the solstice and the beginning of summer, glamping sites will be in place June 21-24 for a three-night, four-day stay in Spencer Spit State Park on Lopez Island.

President Theodore Roosevelt slept here in 1906, and things on San Juan Island haven't changed much since. The De Haro Hotel, where he stayed when he visited his old friend John S. McMillin, who owned the Roche Harbor Lime and Cement Co., is called the Roche Harbor Resort now, and it still has its original 22 rooms and four baths built in 1896--and probably the same furniture, from the looks of it.

A sub-Mediterranean climate in Canada ? Yes, indeed. And that makes Pender Island , a tranquil spot in British Columbia's Gulf Islands, a multi-season getaway. The destination is full of bed-and-breakfasts and boutiques and offers a bounty of outdoor recreational opportunities. Pender Island is just four miles north of Stuart Island, one of Washington state's San Juan Islands, and is popular with Canadians but little known by Americans. Canada's maple leaf flag flutters in the ocean breezes on what, despite the name, are two islands linked by a narrow, one-lane bridge.

Puget Sound was just a name in a high-school geography book for many folks until Expo '86 in Vancouver, British Columbia. That's when thousands driving north for the world's fair learned that the rumors of northwest Washington's almost surreal beauty were in fact a reality. The native Salish Indians have known about that beauty for thousands of years, but kept it pretty much to themselves until Spaniards "discovered" the area and the San Juan Islands in 1774.

Steering my gear-laden mountain bike along the cliffs of San Juan Island, I was suddenly overcome by a fit of laughter. It was midway through a weeklong bicycle tour of the San Juan Islands, but delirium from fatigue wasn't making me laugh. It was the absurd perfection of everything: the cloudless sky, the ocean breezes, the expansive view of Puget Sound, its steel-blue surface stretching to a horizon of snow-capped peaks.

Your Travel Sections constantly become better and better, if that's possible. As proof, I offer the Jerry Hulse piece on Orcas and the other San Juan Islands in Washington. The Times and its readers are indeed most fortunate. VIRGIL PINKLEY Palos Verdes

The articles in the July 27 Travel Section were the greatest in a long time. San Juan Islands and the Yukon River ("Paddling Into the Past") were a pure pleasure to read. It was a trip through the past in the present, well written! VIRGINIA JOHNSON Hesperia

I recommend the Gallant Lady's cruise in the San Juan Islands. Read about it in your Travel Section last July (Travel Tips, July 24) and was there two weeks later. A welcome change of pace. Scenic, relaxing and excellent food. A true labor of love for Capt. Dick, his wife Lyn, family and crew. Nice people. A fun trip! For information, contact Gallant Lady Cruises, P.O. Box 1250, Vashon, Wash. 98070, or call (206) 463-2073. VIRGINIA McKINNEY Palm Springs

Thank you, Jerry Hulse, for coming through like a champ once more with your article of July 26. I took your advice and went to Lopez Island in Washington state's San Juan Islands. What I found was a place for total solitude and relaxation. This is what people do there best, and I took full advantage. Being a travel writer, this is just what I needed. However, may I say to readers that if you are walking off the ferry, you must call your point of destination ahead and notify them of the time of your ferry arrival, as the inns are quite a distance.

FRIDAY HARBOR, Wash. - Two dozen hardy travelers were clustered near me on the top deck of a 114-foot ferry, most of us shivering under cloudy skies as a colorful mosaic of water and land slid by the vessel, the Victoria Clipper III. We were sailing through the San Juan Islands, an archipelago of hundreds of isles between mainland Canada, Vancouver Island and Washington state's northwestern coast. As we cruised north from Seattle, rolling hills were replaced by dark green forests and rocky bluffs that overlooked fiord-like inlets.

If you go THE BEST WAY TO SAN JUAN ISLAND S , WASH. FROM LAX, Alaska, Virgin America and United offer nonstop service to Seattle; Southwest offers direct service (stop, no change of plane); and Southwest, Delta, Virgin America and United offer connecting service (change of plane). Restricted round-trip fares begin at $288. By ferry from Seattle: Clipper Vacations offers a scenic three-hour ferry ride through Puget Sound to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island from $70 a person for adults.

State divers and a fishing boat removed an abandoned fishing net near San Juan Island. Derelict fishing nets, or "ghost nets" as divers call them, can trap and kill marine animals, birds and even people. The state Department of Natural Resources and the Northwest Straits Commission teamed up to remove the fishing net that was snagged on a reef north of San Juan Island. The net is hundreds of feet long and weighs 2 tons to 3 tons.

Escorted by sea gulls and a cool, salty breeze, the ferry snaked around evergreen-cloaked islands as passengers gathered on the front deck to gape at Mt. Baker's volcanic dome. It was a view we almost missed. Before the ferry ride came a flight to Seattle and a 90-minute drive north to Anacortes. It had seemed like too much hassle for a weekend getaway, at least at first. But we gambled. By the time the boat pulled into Port Stanley, our worries had vanished with the gulls.

The articles in the July 27 Travel Section were the greatest in a long time. San Juan Islands and the Yukon River ("Paddling Into the Past") were a pure pleasure to read. It was a trip through the past in the present, well written! VIRGINIA JOHNSON Hesperia

An eagle floated above a cliff as I paddled against difficult currents in northern Washington's San Juan Islands. Swooping down over my heavily loaded sea kayak and dragging its talons like grappling hooks in the water, the eagle snagged a small fish and shot off clutching its wriggling prey. Minutes later I heard the sound of a diesel engine. I stopped and waited. Suddenly a salmon fishing boat burst into view, passing 30 yards off my bow.

When we moved to Orcas in 1980 and I told my friends that we were moving to the San Juan Islands, they thought we were going to the Caribbean. When we arrived it was as you described it in Jerry Hulse's charming article, "Personal Bests" (April 8). Today, not so. The travel writers discovered us. Clippings from our local weeklies illustrate the conditions that you travel writers have helped to create with your articles raving over the beauties of our islands. Of course I'm being a bit facetious, but I'm sure I speak for more than half of the population of San Juan county when I say please do us a favor--for Pete's sake shut up about our islands.

A sub-Mediterranean climate in Canada ? Yes, indeed. And that makes Pender Island , a tranquil spot in British Columbia's Gulf Islands, a multi-season getaway. The destination is full of bed-and-breakfasts and boutiques and offers a bounty of outdoor recreational opportunities. Pender Island is just four miles north of Stuart Island, one of Washington state's San Juan Islands, and is popular with Canadians but little known by Americans. Canada's maple leaf flag flutters in the ocean breezes on what, despite the name, are two islands linked by a narrow, one-lane bridge.

We kept a careful eye out for their bubbles, a sign that they might be just about to surface. But we didn't see Ruffles, Granny, Sparky, Rascal, Dylan or any member of their families. They're among the 90 huge black and white orca whales that live in Puget Sound--perhaps the most famous whales anywhere, thanks to the "Free Willy" movies filmed here on the San Juan Islands north of Seattle.

Steering my gear-laden mountain bike along the cliffs of San Juan Island, I was suddenly overcome by a fit of laughter. It was midway through a weeklong bicycle tour of the San Juan Islands, but delirium from fatigue wasn't making me laugh. It was the absurd perfection of everything: the cloudless sky, the ocean breezes, the expansive view of Puget Sound, its steel-blue surface stretching to a horizon of snow-capped peaks.