Retiring to Roche Harbor?

A great visiting spot but perhaps not a home

“Island pricing is simple. First you pay for the item. Then you pay for its entire journey.”
— Anonymous

Marsha and I with her cousin leaving for Roche Harbor via Seaplane

Two weeks ago, I mentioned we went on vacation to celebrate the 70th birthday of Marsha’s cousin. He is an active boater and fisherman, and Roche Harbor on San Juan island is his favorite place in the world. Even though summer is the busiest time of year for his construction company, he tries to spend as much free time up there as he can. We’d never been there before, and his wife appropriately made the call that it was about time that the Pao family made the pilgrimage.

Given that I always now look at places like this with the eyes of a “retirement blogger,” I felt compelled to write about our experience here, as well as to share my own thoughts about the place as a potential place to retire. The net here is that I feel Roche Harbor is a great place to visit and perhaps less of a place to call “home.”

Getting there

Roche Harbor is busy in the summer, and reservations for accommodations for larger parties require planning because there are so many weddings held there. Still, we were able to find available accommodations at a time when both our daughters were able to fly out and Marsha’s cousin’s daughters could also come. The Pao family stayed at a rental home managed by the resort, Marsha’s cousin’s daughters stayed at Quarryman Hall. Marsha’s cousin and his wife stayed on their boat in the harbor.

Getting to Roche Harbor isn’t easy either. Taking the ferry from Anacortes makes for a long, 3 hour journey from Seattle, so we all took a Kenmore Air seaplane, which is just a 45 minute flight. It’s not cheap, but for a one-time visit, it was worth it! We took over all but one seat on the plane.

Taking over the Kenmore Air seaplane

Some things we enjoyed

Summer temperatures. The combination of the mild Pacific Northwest summer temperatures and the crisp ocean air make for just a very pleasant outdoor experience. The little resort town is just so charming with artist stands, little shops, and eateries.

Fine dining. We did our first night dinner at McMillin’s, which was outstanding. We were all impressed with the prawns and calamari as appetizers. I really enjoyed my crab bisque and petrale sole. I tasted my older daughter’s salmon and my younger daughter’s sable fish, and I thought those dishes, too, were excellent. I eagerly ate the rest of Marsha’s flame-grilled prime rib as leftovers a couple days later, and it was very good (although not among the best steaks I’ve had in life).

Casual dining. The next day, we had lunch at Westcott Bay, and the “Little Olys” are probably the best oysters I’ve had in my life. Even though I get really seasick, I felt it was definitely worth the boat ride out just to eat there. The clam bowl was also excellent. We should have skipped the mezze platter and just eaten more seafood!

My favorite “Little Olys” oysters at Westcott Bay

The seafood there in that part of the Northwest seems to be just so uniformly good. Marsha’s cousin caught fresh crabs in his crab pot, their boat neighbor gave us some fresh caught salmon, and Keith, who has a stand right on the dock, has amazing spot prawns.

At-home catering. It was also fun to get dinner catered for us one night. Paellas San Juan came to our rental home and made a feast. Candidly, the seafood paella wasn’t my thing, as I think I preferred just eating the local seafood on its own. Still, the salad and tapas were excellent, as was the whole experience. It was nice to do an evening at “home away from home” for an extended birthday celebration for Marsha’s cousin, without worrying about restaurants having to turn tables.

Events. Every night at sunset, there is a cool “Colors” ceremony where they play the national anthems of the US and Canada, and then shoot a cannon! Local boaters also participate in the festivities by honking the horns after the cannon. It is really beautiful to be outside at that time in the evening.

Roche Harbor at sunset

We also attended a very daytime fun event serving San Juan Brewer beers, hosted right off the dock where there was a live jazz band.

Boating. Our kids really enjoyed the boating part of the trip. Given that I get really seasick, we were never a boating or fishing family. That said, Marsha’s cousin took the kids out on his boat, and they all had a great time, even spotting some Orca whales! Marsha graciously hung back with me on shore to keep me company. I know that day our older daughter got the boating bug, and she intends to return with her husband at some point. He had to miss this trip to attend a bachelor party in Kraków, Poland for a long time friend.

Overall, we had a really special time there with family, and this trip, while short, was full of wonderful memories. I can definitely see why retired people enjoy spending time in Roche Harbor.

Some surprises

Costs. Probably the biggest surprise to me was how expensive everything was there. It’s expensive to get there (over $400 roundtrip per person on the seaplane) and expensive to stay there (over $3,000 for a 3-night minimum stay). Moreover, anything purchased there is more expensive. Conservatively, it seemed like a bottle of nice alcohol (e.g., Veuve or Grey Goose) cost at least $20 more on the island than on the mainland!

Of course, when Marsha’s cousin also shared the cost of mooring, fueling, and maintaining his boat there, we were talking about a totally different type of expense. I won’t share his actual numbers, but a quick Google search estimated that for a typical 35 to 55-foot power boat kept in Roche Harbor all year round, owners should expect to spend between $23,000 and $46,000+ per year in total cash outlays. Still, there is no lack of demand, and he told us that the wait list is now over 40 years long to get a spot there.

Rain. We lost a day of our vacation to a pretty severe rain storm. We got drenched that day. Fortunately, our rental home had an in-unit washer/dryer. Still, there were no outdoor activities the rest of that day, and Marsha was a hero picking up takeout pizza and salad from Lime Kiln Cafe at the bottom of our hill, using an extra jacket borrowed from her cousin’s wife. While the region’s weather is known for a broader summer stability, there are localized “microclimate anomalies” which cause “unseasonal maritime disruptions.” Another downside of island living.

Dangers of seaplanes. For a more serious risk associated with island living, we were surprised to learn that just a few days after we returned from Roche Harbor, Kenmore Air experienced a seaplane crash from Seattle to Roche Harbor. The pilot and 10 passengers survived, but three remain hospitalized longer-term. This incident highlighted how seaplanes introduce some added risk because operating on water removes almost all the safety infrastructure standard land aviation relies on. It also highlighted the problem with access to medical care on the island.

Distance from emergency medical care. Hospitalizations after the crash required that patients be flown via helicopter to Bellingham and Seattle for ongoing care. Typically, medical emergencies on the San Juan islands require air transport to a hospital on the mainland. While plane crashes are unique occurrences, medical emergencies get more common as we all age. This is a big difference to our lives in Portland, where we’re just 2 miles from OHSU.

Where this leaves us

At a personal level, I myself would never consider Roche Harbor as a permanent retirement destination. I know I have a pretty unique medical situation, and living too far from a leading hospital pretty much disqualifies it. In addition, my own motion sickness makes ferries, seaplanes, boats, and even floating docks pretty unpleasant, so it’s hard to imagine making a life for myself out there.

I believe the numbers reveal that my views are pretty common. The population of Roche Harbor is estimated to be fewer than 800 residents, whereas the transient overnight guests number about 2,500-3,000 during peak seasons, with another 1,000+ day trippers. In other words, Roche Harbor is largely a place to visit, not live.

This makes sense to me. Despite my reservations about any sort of permanent home there, on balance, I think I’d prefer to reunite with family over summer there in Roche Harbor over Bellevue at New Year’s like we do right now. Those New Year’s visits almost always involve a terrible drive from Portland up I-5 in inclement weather, icy and steep streets in South Bellevue, and even less daylight. While the geographic difference is only about 2 degrees of latitude, the perceived gloominess is just a lot higher in South Bellevue when combining the terrain and low cloud cover. Moreover, a significant part of the vacation is always spent stressing about preparing traditional Japanese dishes that aren’t fully appreciated by the younger generations anyway. As I mentioned earlier, our older daughter would like to return to Roche Harbor, and I think our younger daughter would be game, too. Still, with the costs involved, I think both returning might be dependent on whether others (e.g., Mom and Dad) foot the bill!

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Author’s note: I normally use AI to assist with preparing these pieces. However, given that Substack has now started using Pangram to analyze posts, I decided to go “all human” this time around to see if Substack can properly profile my own writing in the absence of any AI assistance. (It did!) My own “How I make this” section Substack does fully disclose my normal usage of AI.

Pangram analyis of this post as “Fully Human Written”