Fish ON – Happenings around Friday Harbor

There has been a bit of activity here in Friday harbor the past few days.  It started when a HOUSE docked Wednesday on the outside of the breakwater, right in front of our view.  (House in this case is a 72’ Yacht. . .  Wow, this thing is bigger than most the places I lived on land in.)  Thursday brought oodles of smaller boats (the house had one side tied to it) as the last event in the Northwest Salmon Derby was getting underway.  http://northwestsalmonderbyseries.com/


It was fun to watch them mill around in the dark just off the breakwater Friday morning awaiting the firing of the starting canon.  FLASH/BOOM and 100 or so boats were off!  Later that day they started to trickle in with their days catch.  As Kristi and I went up to watch the Friday Harbor Christmas Parade and Tree Lighting Ceremony we noted the biggest catch of the day at 22+ lbs on display.  Nice Fish, and already bigger than last year’s winner.   This morning boats mingled out around sunrise (no canon start, just follow the WDFW rules) for the 2nd and final day.  Will be interesting to see what comes in today.

As to the Parade, it is without a doubt the shortest and smallest parade I have ever seen.  Beating even the Paisley Mosquito Festival Parade I remember from the 80’s (where they ran it 3 times around the 3 blocks to make it last a bit longer).   Friday Harbor’s also spanned 3 blocks but was run only once – consisting of one Fire truck and 5 Christmas characters (Rudolph, Gingerbread man, a couple of Elves and Frosty) + Santa.  It clearly set a new short bar.  Caroling, announcements of building decoration winners, and tree lighting completed the evening.  It was fun to get out and participate.