"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
om...
My wife and I have talked about flying up to Washington state to visit
Orca island. My understanding is that they have Oracs that live their
year-round (they don't migrate).

It's "Orcas Island", with a short s ("Or-kiss").

Orca whales can be found in and around the Puget Sound area, and the San
Juans (Orcas Island included) are popular places to start out on a
whale-watching tour. It is not true that the whales are present year-round,
but summer is definitely a good time to see them.

Do a Google search on "whale watching san juan island" or "whale watching
orcas island" for a variety of operators and other information.

Can anyone suggest..

1) Best place to land ( I understand you can land on one of the
islands and you don't need ground transportation??)

Depends on where you land. There's only one public airport on Orcas Island,
at Eastsound, and to my knowledge no whale-watching tours depart from
Eastsound (there's no marina there). I don't even know where whale-watching
tours would depart from Orcas Island, but probably around Deer Harbor or
near the ferry docks, both several miles from Eastsound, to the south and
west.

Probably a better bet for you, if you want to be able to walk, would either
be Friday Harbor or Roche Harbor, both on San Juan Island. Friday Harbor is
the biggest town and harbor in the San Juans, and there will be a number of
whale-watching operators there. Roche Harbor is a private airport serving
the resort there, but is open to the public ($5 landing fee, paid on the
honor system), and I would guess (but don't know) that you could get an
all-in-one package at Roche Harbor that includes lodging and whale watching
tours (or at least arrange for it all in the same place).

Whether you
2) Best place to stay

Best place? Who knows? There's lots of good places to stay. Roche Harbor
(San Juan Island) and Rosario (Orcas Island) are both popular resorts, but
there are numerous bed-and-breakfasts and other hotels. Kangaroo House B&B
in Eastsound is right next to the airport there, and while it's been several
years since we've stayed there, it was very nice and well-run then.

3) Best Orca activity. Do you need to get tickets for a charter boat
to go out to see them. What are the odds of actually seeing an Orca?

If you go in the summer, odds are good. Yes, you purchase a ride on a
charter boat, and if you wanted personalized service, you could probably
charter a whole boat yourself (though that would probably be a lot more
expensive). Most of the operators use a network of lookouts to track the
pods. At least one operator offers a guarantee: you pay once, ride free
after that until you see a whale. My guess is that's not uncommon.

I think I'm probably the only pilot in the Puget Sound area to have never
seen a pod of whales from the air. Everyone I know says they've seen them,
but the only time I've ever seen a whale, it was one that had been in the
same spot for weeks (a small bay near Poulsbo) and that was just one whale.
As long as your luck is better than my miserable track record (and it'd be
hard for it not to be), you could probably find at least one of the pods
during the summertime simply by cruising around the islands in your
airplane. Just be careful...the airspace in the San Juans can get pretty
congested in the summertime.

I suppose if you want to maximize your chances of seeing whales up close,
the best thing to do would be find one or more pods by air, then land right
away at Friday Harbor, get on one of the tours, and tell the operator where
you saw the pod(s). But the operators do a pretty good job on their own, so
that may not be necessary.

4) What other activities can you do on the island?

Depends on which island you mean, though activities are similar throughout
the chain. One of my favorite activities on Orcas Island is hiking the
state park that's there. There's a lookout tower that's fun to climb up to,
a couple of nice-sized lakes to walk around, and a network of trails.

There are many artists, in any variety of media (glass, pottery, paint,
sculpture, etc.), scattered around the islands. In all of the towns, you'll
find galleries, and then if you look around, you'll find other studios in
the outlying areas. On Orcas, there's a "artist barn" down near Doe Harbor,
toward the southeast end of the island.

Biking is a very popular activity, as is golf and horseback riding. Or you
can just hang out in any of the towns, walking around seeing the shops,
picnicking down by the water (beach or marina), or exploring any of the
number of historical museums that are there.

The three main islands are San Juan, Orcas, and Lopez, from busiest to
quietest. Friday Harbor is pretty much the only town with anything
approximating a "nightlife", and even there you're not going to find a
Studio 54 or anything like that. Lopez is well-known for EVERY driver
waving to EVERY other driver. It's a nice, quiet, laid back sort of place.
Eastsound is about in between, but I'd say it's a little more toward the
laid-back side of things, and the rest of Orcas Island is definitely more
laid back.

Friday Harbor, Roche Harbor, and Eastsound airports are the only ones within
walking distance to the major activities, and Roche Harbor is more of a
resort destination, so activities there are still somewhat limited. If
you're going to be there for any significant amount of time, you're likely
to want to arrange for some sort of ground transportation at least now and
then, if for nothing else then to move your luggage. Rosario on Orcas
will pick you up at the airport, and my guess is that any of the larger
lodging operations would; don't expect any of the B&Bs to though. They
might, but I wouldn't count on it.

What we usually do when we go up there by plane is to rent a car. But I'll
warn you now: for the usual $30/day or so, you don't get a new car. You get
an "island" car. It's basically like renting an airport courtesy car. But
taxis are hard to find, and there's no public transportation. You can also
rent scooters and bikes and whatnot, depending on your inclination and how
much you're carrying.

Hope that helps.

Pete