[caption id="attachment_4275" align="alignleft" width="300"] Mount Baker over Bellingham[/caption]

Something seemed to be a awry with the water heater circuit breaker on the Escape, and we awoke to cold showers. But since it was slightly warmer now that we were down the San Juans, it wasn't too much of a hardship. We untied early from Roche Harbor and made our way slowly on a zigzag path through the intricate channels of the San Juan Islands, looking for whales and the homes of friends, headed to Bellingham and the end of our journey. I think we all felt happy to be going home but not too eager to get there; and so we made it a 4- to 5-hour journey out of what should have taken half as long.

We never saw any whales despite several promising detours, but finally Bellingham hove into view. Once the boat was refueled, we pulled into our slip, tied up, shut down the engines, and looked at each other with a certain measure of satisfaction that the entire two week journey of more than 400 miles to Desolation Sound had proceeded without any incident. Even better, we still seemed to like each other - or at least, I still liked them.

And that was that. We packed, cleaned up the boat, looked for lost items, and had a final onboard dinner before crashing in our staterooms to rise at daybreak the next day for the drive to Seattle and our flights home.[gallery include="4269,4271,4272" size="medium" link="file"]