“On Roche Harbor, everything comes with an island tax, including the view.”

We spent July 15 through July 18 on San Juan Island, our first visit to Roche Harbor, staying in a home managed by the resort. The occasion was Marsha’s cousin’s 70th birthday, timed close enough to my own that we celebrated both together.

Roche Harbor is his favorite place in the world. He is an avid boater and fisherman, and he spends as much of every summer there as his construction company allows. Summer is also that business’s busiest season, so full time retirement there is still a few years off for him even though he would love it now.

Getting the four of us there took real coordination. Our older daughter flew in from Columbia, South Carolina, and our younger daughter flew in from Chicago. Both landed at SeaTac and stayed with Marsha’s brother, and we picked them up on our way north from Portland. From there, all four of us flew from Kenmore to Roche Harbor on a Kenmore Air seaplane. Marsha’s cousin and his wife stayed on their own boat in the harbor, and his two daughters stayed at the Quarryman, while we stayed in our rental.

Some things we enjoyed

The weather cooperated the whole trip, sunny and cool, with the kind of clean ocean air that made just standing outside feel good.

The seafood was the real story of the visit. Dinner at McMillin’s started with prawns and calamari, and I followed that with crab bisque, bread, and petrale sole, plus a sundae to finish. The Westcott Bay oysters we had were the best I have ever eaten. A stand right on the dock sold us spot prawns straight off the boat, Marsha’s cousin brought in fresh crab from his own crab pot, and his boat neighbor shared salmon he had just caught that day. One night we had San Juan paella catered at the rental for the family celebration, so nobody had to cook. The salad and the tapas were excellent. The paella itself was not really to my taste, but everything around it was.

Saturday brought a small dockside event, a live jazz band and beer from San Juan Brewing. Every night around 8pm, the resort runs what I learned is called its Colors Ceremony, a tradition going back to 1957. Music plays, the flags come down, a trumpet sounds, and a cannon fires. It is a genuinely nice way to end the day.

The people running the harbor were friendly across the board, right down to donuts appearing most mornings.

Some surprises

The island tax was real. Food, lodging, and getting there all cost more once a place is only reachable by boat or plane. Marsha’s cousin’s own numbers were on a different scale entirely, between his mooring fees and the general cost of keeping a boat.

There is no medical care on site. Everything is a boat or plane ride away, and that alone is a personal dealbreaker for me.

We lost a full day to a hard rain on Thursday and stayed in with takeout pizza.

Roche Harbor is more exclusive than it looks. The waitlist to moor a boat there runs close to 40 years. Most of the homes seem to be summer places, managed as rentals when their owners are away, and waterfront land is limited enough that owning one is probably a strong investment even though almost nobody treats one as a full time retirement home.

Days after we got home, a Kenmore Air seaplane went down near Sucia Island on the same Lake Union to Roche Harbor route we had just flown. All 11 people aboard survived, four were hospitalized, and one was listed in critical condition. We had taken that route specifically to avoid the ferry line, so the news landed differently once we knew.

Where this leaves us

I am not eager to go back. Motion sickness rules out ferries, seaplanes, boats, and even a floating dock, which does not leave much of Roche Harbor open to me.

Our older daughter had the opposite reaction. She never grew up boating because of my motion sickness, and this was her first time out on the water, with Marsha’s cousin driving. She saw orcas, went fishing, and had a great time. I think our younger daughter would want to go back too.

If this is really about time with that side of the family, a summer in Roche Harbor still beats what we currently do, which is fly back to Bellevue every New Year into bad weather and a worse drive.

Has anyone else found a place that works better for the family than it does for you personally?

Note that Pangram believes this version was also fully human written!