Meet the Orcas Island writer whose office is the ferry

Among the passengers you’d typically see on the interisland ferry that circles Washington's San Juan Islands are people going to work, doctor appointments or making deliveries. But for the past several months, Debra Lee Babcock has also been there, typing away at her laptop, drawing inspiration from the water around her.

“It’s an amazing thing to have the ferry as your office,” said Babcock, the current writer-in-residence on the interisland ferry.

The journey to meet up with her on Orcas Island began just after 7 a.m. one morning at the ferry terminal in Anacortes. A ferry ride in the San Juans often feels otherworldly, with ghostly mountains in the background. The sun, that’s able to break through gaps in the clouds, shimmers off the water.

After an hour, I disembark at Orcas. Babcock greets me and promptly suggests a driving tour of the horseshoe-shaped island with no stoplights and a vibrant arts scene. She’s lived in Orcas full-time since 2018. As a painter, writer and former theater director, she fits right in.

A few years back, the writer-in-residence program began on the interisland ferry. Babcock eventually applied for the position, hoping to spend nine months working on her book while aboard the ferry.

“Twice a week, I get on at 10:15, I get off typically at 4:15 and so I am circling these islands for six hours,” said Babcock. “They give you a sign, so I have a desk, and on the interisland ferry, there's only three places to plug in. So I scurry up there and I get on the boat and make sure I get one of those.”

When we spoke, Babcock was dressed in a denim jacket. She had black-framed glasses that sat on top of her short gray hair. She told me the manuscript she’s working on is about an episode in her family’s history, in which the death of her brother-in-law and later her sister led Babcock and her husband to become parents of two children.

There was also a court fight involving a man who came into her sister’s life before she died. The book is about Babcock’s internal struggle with how to react to that situation.

“Okay, I could go to my lowest self here in anger and fear and revenge and a lot of things, and there’d be a lot of people backing me up,” Babcock said, taking a deep breath and a long pause. “Or, I could not do that.”

She said the writer-in-residence program has helped her put these thoughts on paper. She said that it’s been good to get out of her home studio, where she can sometimes be tempted to paint instead of write.

'She thinks I'm a tour guide'

On the ferry, she can put on her headphones and concentrate – when she’s not explaining to curious passengers what she’s doing there. Babcock remembers one woman she met recently.

“She sat down on the bench across from me and said ‘Oh, I have a million questions’ like ‘what’s the cultural history of the islands, like who are the Indigenous people?’,” said Babcock. “And she was asking all these questions and I realized ‘oh, she thinks i’m a tour guide’.”

Babcock said it’s a give-and-take of interacting with people and writing.

“Having this very structured time of being out of my house and meanwhile being just rocked by the boat,” Babcock said. “It's got movement and any time I want to, I can just pick up my head and look out [and think] ‘Okay. Here I am again. I'm here.’ You know, it's very, very supportive."

On and off the boat for 'a million reasons'

The troubles with the Washington State Ferries system are well known . The problems with reliability and staffing are particularly acute on the interisland ferry. Numbers from the state show 95% of sailings are completed system wide, but only 81% on the interisland ferry.

“It’s actually not challenging for me," said Babcock. “Because if the ferry is late or it’s not happening this morning or who knows when it’s going to happen, right here at the ferry landing in Orcas, there is the fabulous Orcas Hotel. There was a day recently when it was like, ‘oh yeah, this is not working.’ I am just going to stay here.”

While Babcock is able to adapt, she understands the ferry disruptions can be a serious problem. So much so, the state of Washington recently set aside $1.5 million in emergency funding for alternative transportation around the islands until ferry staffing issues are resolved.

“People are in life-threatening situations where they need to get to doctors, or they need to have dialysis,” said Babcock. “[It’s something] people take for granted when they aren't dependent on a boat that's not necessarily available”

Babcock said the people she’s met over the last several months have expanded her island community. She said her manuscript is well on its way to completion, and before long, her time as writer-in-residence will end, too.

“I doubt I’ll come twice a week to use the boat that way, and I will miss it for sure,” said Babcock. ”But if you live on the islands, we’re on and off the boat a lot for a million reasons.”