Anacortes ferry terminal to San Juans
— the boat that turns the islands real.
Not only on a wall.
“The terminal sits at the west end of Fidalgo Island, two miles past the last stoplight in Anacortes. Cars stack in numbered holding lanes. Walk-on passengers take their coffee out to the dock and watch the Yakima or the Chelan slide in past the kelp. Gulls work the bow. The crossing to Friday Harbor runs about an hour and ten minutes through Thatcher Pass and across Rosario Strait, long enough for the mainland to fall away and Lopez to come up green out of the water. Nobody hurries. The terminal is the part of the trip that begins.
Anacortes ferry terminal to San Juans, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Anacortes terminal is the only Washington State Ferries route to the San Juan Islands and the only WSF link to Sidney, British Columbia. It sits at 2100 Ferry Terminal Road on the western edge of Fidalgo Island in Skagit County, Washington, about eighty miles north of Seattle and twenty-seven miles south of Bellingham by State Route 20. From the dock, ferries cross Guemes Channel and Rosario Strait to four island stops: Lopez, Shaw, Orcas, and Friday Harbor on San Juan Island. The route traces its current form to the 1920s, when the Puget Sound Navigation Company consolidated service that the state took over in 1951.
The route crosses Rosario Strait, a deep tidal channel between Fidalgo Island and Lopez Island. The strait is open to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and feels the swell when a Pacific low pushes in; the Issaquah-class boats handle most weather, and the route closes only for the worst winter storms. The Southern Resident orcas of the J, K, and L pods hunt these waters in summer, following Chinook salmon runs documented by the Center for Whale Research. From the bow on a clear morning Mount Baker rises 10,781 feet above the islands to the northeast.
Sailings run year-round, with peak summer schedules adding evening departures. Vehicle reservations are required for most departures from May through September and are released in waves on the Washington State Ferries website: a first batch about two months ahead and the rest closer to sailing. Walk-on passengers and bicyclists never need reservations. The terminal building has restrooms, a small waiting room, and a coffee stand. Cars line up by destination in numbered holding lanes; the boarding crew loads by lane, not by arrival time. The run to Friday Harbor takes about an hour and ten minutes, with intermediate stops at Lopez, Shaw, or Orcas depending on the sailing.