Shaw Island Biking Day:
15.96 miles, 1332 ft ascent, 3 hrs. 21 min.
Daily Drena: Quiet Roads
We were up early this morning, but didn’t have plans to catch the ferry to Shaw until later, so meandered into the downtown to grab some breakfast at the local cafe, Rocky Bay Cafe. We were apparently hungry as we devoured our meals, although it was just average food. Only being 9:15 we then wandered across the street to the local grocers, Kings Market, and found some salmon, cheese, salami, cheese and chocolate for our adventure on Shaw Island later in the day. Shaw is mainly residential nowadays with just one general store as the only commercial operation on the island. The local nuns managed the general store and ferry terminal from 1977-2004 and still operate the monastery and working farm in the middle of the island. There are only 250 full-time residents on the island, so should be quite rural and right up our alley!
The ferry was running a little late today, but we eventually made it over to Shaw by early afternoon so were still able to spend the afternoon on the isle. The journey started by us leaving the ferry with only two other passengers and no cars so a good start! We loaded up and headed off to our first stop of the day, Blind Bay, for a nice viewpoint. We discovered early on that the roads were deserted and more like country lanes.
In the middle of the isle sits the school house, which is still active today and serves 35 kids on the island, K-8. There is also the cutest little library and the history museum as well (both open very limited hours each week).
Wandering over to the west end of the island, there were two nice viewpoints to look out from. The unfortunate part of the island is that it is almost entirely private, so there are private beach and no trespassing signs everywhere. There was a little bench just off the viewpoint which is also marked private, so no relaxing to be had! It wouldn’t kill them to just let folks use the bench for five minutes, considering there are like 5 visitors a day to the island and probably only one or two go all the way out there…
We headed over to the southern tip of the island next, where the University of Washington has a biological preserve. Along the way there were some amazing fern groves and someone who just started to recreate the Field of Dreams movie. We found our second gravel road along the way (yay!) and an amazing place to eat a peaceful lunch at Hoffman Cove, listening to the soft lapping of the waves coming ashore.
Our last stop of the day was the Shaw County Park and South Beach, which is supposedly the best beach on the island. We spent a good 20 minutes there soaking in the sun and playing with some dogs on the beach who were super friendly, before heading back to catch the ferry back home for the evening. For the entirety of the afternoon we saw maybe a dozen cars and maybe a dozen more people at the beach and ferry…it was amazing!
