This pocket of graceful homes lining the banks of the Guemes Channel is a favorite location in Anacortes. Large, stately homes with manicured gardens or whimsical cottages comprise this neighborhood. The area is adjacent to the downtown section and many can stroll to town for bakery goods and coffee, a book browse or meal and music. Guemes Channel is the waterway between Anacortes and Guemes Island and a small car ferry makes the seven-minute crossing between the two islands. The channel is the chief access route for pleasure boats and fishing vessels leaving the Cap Sante marina destined for the San Juan Islands. It is also the approach route for the great oil tankers that come and go under tugboat escort. To gaze closely at the spectacle of an immense tanker underway never fails to be thrilling. Christmas season brings the procession of decorated boats up and down the channel for the Boat Parade festivity. Waterfront residents of Old Town are indeed treated to an ongoing array of activity right at their windows.