Disaster at Sea

10 days is a long vacation when you're James' age, and today I think we hit a 3 year old's limit.

After a spartan continental breakfast, we made our way down to the Fairhaven ferry terminal for an all-day whale watching cruise throughout the San Juan Islands, featuring salmon lunch.  There was just one other family with little kids, a gaggle of drunk college kids celebrating a birthday, and mostly older couples very interested is seeing whales.  We were told that whales are seen on 90% of the daily voyages.  Alas...

See him now as he stands on the bow of a ship headed for a new land 

The first few hours certainly tested James' patience, but he did manage to sidle up to the other family and make friendly with their 5 and 2 year olds.  Around 11:30am, we landed in Friday Harbor on San Juan Island itself, the largest village in the islands, and the hub of tourist activity therein.  We were greeted before we even left the dock by "Popeye," a geriatric seal who has loafed around these docks begging people for food for over 15 years.  Popeye has her pup with her now, defying both her age and an earlier generation of boatsmen who assumed she was male.

James and Erica checking out "Popeye" the one-eyed seal, and her new pup

The hoppin' little downtown area of Friday Harbor was full of upscale boutiques and quaint pubs, and classy in the way these types of places are when they're on Cape Cod or up in Maine.  Not fancy per se, since there's still advertisements for happy hours and stacks o' cakes and and things, but extremely expensive price-wise, and there's big yachts and sailboats everywhere.  We walked the main drag a few times, then headed back to the boat.  It was a beautiful day and I was feeling pretty good about everything.

James later on rides the marble statue of Popeye, erected seemingly too soon

James' face presages where this day is headed

James was not really having any of it, and it was about to get MUCH WORSE.  Upon reboarding, he noticed that his two little friends had each purchased two small orca whale toys.  Now, he HAS an orca whale toy, and he'd even brought it with him.  But it is (apparently) a "daddy" orca, not a "mommy" or a "baby" one, and he just melted down right then and there.  On a boat at sea, there is no place to take a screaming toddler.  Once the ship got going, he insisted that he couldn't stay outside because it was too cold and the spray was making him wet (neither was true).  Yet he couldn't stay inside because, taunted by the sight of orca toys, he only screamed and made a scene by repeatedly demanding the other kids share them.  None of the other passengers wanted him inside, but outside he became absolutely inconsolable, lost in fits of rage that I have never seen from him. There was punching and kicking (Erica has a legit eye bruise) and even some headbutting (new to the repertoire).   To calm him down, we'd take him inside, but he'd start right up again crying for toys, and this in/out process lasted most of the afternoon.  To make matters worse, there were no real live orcas, or any other kind of whale to be seen anywhere, for that matter.

As the hours ticked on, the boat chased whale-sighting rumors it was receiving from other boats all over the archipelago.  James followed the 5 year old around, endlessly hounding her to borrow her baby orca.  Time stretched into infinity; the lower deck, trapping the suns rays, heated up like a sauna, while the outside remained windy, but got wetter as the waves got rougher.  James screamed whenever forced to give the orca toy back.  The deck began lurching more violently beneath our feet.  We'd take him outside to keep him from bothering the other passengers, but he'd lose his marbles as the red mist descended.  This stupid, pointless cruise was never going to end.

Then it did.  We docked.  James, asleep on his feet, fell into his stroller, greeting it like an old friend.  We had a pretty incredible dinner at Aslan Brewing Company, one of Bellingham's 1,500 amazing brewpubs.  Bedtime went smoothly.  Erica and I drank beer while watching Game of Thrones.  Good night, actually.

Tomorrow, it's home, and Tuesday, it's work.  Oh, well.



Grant