{"id":537,"date":"2015-07-01T21:02:04","date_gmt":"2015-07-02T04:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.debgarland.com\/?p=537"},"modified":"2024-08-08T16:49:19","modified_gmt":"2024-08-08T23:49:19","slug":"finding-frost-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/debgarland.com\/?p=537","title":{"rendered":"Finding Frost Island"},"content":{"rendered":"

Evening stars shone brighter with every stroke of the oars as we circumnavigated the 70-acre island after sunset. Rowing around Frost Island in a 9-foot dinghy in the middle of winter is possible, if the wind and waves are calm. Bundle in warm clothing, keeping a sharp lookout for passing ferries and powerboats. They can leave steep waves\u00a0behind them\u00a0and it\u2019s prudent to cross their wakes at a 45-degree angle. Sailboats, like the SV Dirigo<\/em> below, leave a much smaller wake astern.<\/p>\n

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Photo courtesy of San Juan Classic Day Sailing<\/h6>\n

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Lean\u00a0over the side of a small boat at low tide, but not too far, and\u00a0discover the invertebrate sea life inhabiting the San Juan Islands. Thirty species of starfish live on the seafloor covered with rocks, shells, gravel, and hard sand\u00a0<\/span>in the inter-tidal zone of the Pacific Northwest.\u00a0These sea stars, as they are becoming\u00a0more popularly called, sport a variety of colors including red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. And various shapes, from the Sunflower Star with an abundance of legs\u2014to the lacy Basket Star that resembles a doily\u2014to the web-legged Bat star shown in this photo.<\/p>\n

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This photo was taken underwater through a dive mask. If this photo had been taken on the beach, each of these creatures would\u2019ve tucked themselves out-of-sight inside their shells.<\/p>\n

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Tony,\u00a0my nature photographer husband, captured these photos. Didn\u2019t he do an amazing job taking the above close-up photos of God’s creation?<\/p>\n

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Frost Island was named for\u00a0John Frost, the boatswain of the Porpoise,<\/em> a vessel of the Wilkes Expedition (1838-1842).\u00a0The private island consists of 15 waterfront properties whose owners share a 12-acre common area,\u00a0water system, and dock. Access to the island is by water taxi or private vessel. No electricity, motor vehicles, or small planes here!\u00a0Most residents have built vacation homes or cabins, heating their showers and lighting their lamps with propane. Others own a yurt, teepee, or tent platform. All\u00a0have outhouses.<\/p>\n

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At the lower left of this aerial photo is the tip of Spencer Spit and the narrow channel that separates Frost Island from popular\u00a0Spencer Spit State P<\/a>ark\u00a0situated\u00a0on the northeast corner of Lopez Island. At high tide, small runabout motorboats transit this small passageway to and from Lopez Sound to the delight of those ashore. Vessels anchor or moor to the park buoys on either side of Spencer Spit, giving boaters easy access to the picnic shelter, historic clam-shelling shack made of driftwood, and an opportunity to beach comb.<\/p>\n

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Photo courtesy of the Washington State Dept. of Ecology<\/h6>\n

Thank you for reading!<\/p>\n

Blessings,<\/p>\n

Deb<\/p>\n

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Evening stars shone brighter with every stroke of the oars as we circumnavigated the 70-acre island after sunset. Rowing around Frost Island in a 9-foot dinghy in the middle of winter is possible, if the wind and waves are calm. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[142,20,54],"tags":[600,602,254,596,604,597,598,219,606,560,599,605,603,601,146],"class_list":["post-537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-frost-island","category-san-juan-islands","category-writing","tag-basket-star","tag-bat-star","tag-deb-garland","tag-deb-garlands-san-juan-islands-beyond","tag-dive-mask","tag-frost-island","tag-john-frost","tag-lopez-sound","tag-mooring-buoys","tag-photography","tag-s-v-porpoise","tag-spencer-spit-marine-state-park","tag-starfish","tag-sunflower-star","tag-washington-state-marine-park"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/debgarland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/debgarland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/debgarland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debgarland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debgarland.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=537"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/debgarland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2581,"href":"https:\/\/debgarland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537\/revisions\/2581"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debgarland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/debgarland.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debgarland.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debgarland.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}