Blind Bay to Rosario, Orcas Island 1 hour 7 miles

Poor Heather woke up at 6:30am to Merlin barking like crazy. Fred & I didn’t hear him, so she went up to see if he needed to go out. Once out, he just stared at her. So back to bed she went. We had a very short cruise to Rosario on Orcas Island. We wandered up to the mansion, which is now the resort hotel. Very beautiful building with a lot of character. It has a spa on the bottom floor, common areas and restaurant on the main floor and a museum and music room on the 3rd. We wandered down to the beach and let Merlin run around. Then there is this great pond above the marina with water lilies, fountains, a bridge and little islands. We walked further back up toward the hotel and spotted a deer just off the side of the road. It was staring at Merlin while we got some nice photos of it. There was a pipe organ concert by Christopher Peacock back in the music room of the hotel at 4pm. The performance was wonderful. He played a 1900 Steinway piano, enormous pipe organ and gave a wonderful history of the Moran Family and Rosario. We wandered around the small museum and saw many old photos, a replica of Rosario and a model of the USS Nebraska that was one of the ships that the Moran family built. The music room what really great. It had 2 walls of organ pipes, which were apparently just decorative and hid the working ones. Between the two walls was a 1900 Steinway Grand Piano. Christopher Peacock is the entertainer who has worked at this hotel for 30 years. He played the piano, organ, played a slideshow of Robert Moran’s early 1900’s photos and told stories about the family. It was a very enjoyable hour, very glad I went. We stopped at the restaurant in the resort after and decided to eat there instead of on the boat. The restaurant is brand new, only open for 4 weeks, called The Quilted Pig (http://www.quiltedpigrestaurant.com/). All the tables are right at the window overlooking the cove. Everything, except for one small side dish at the menu, is made from scratch right at the restaurant or locally grown. After dinner we headed back to the dock and spotted our waiter there. Fred left his credit card at the restaurant and waiter knew we were on a boat, so came down to return it. Very nice of him. We watched an episode of Beauty and the Beast as I caught up on my journal and downloaded some pictures. And change of plans for tomorrow… we’re going to try for Sucia again instead of Reid Harbor.