[wacker77]

Moving out to Whidbey Island soon. How's the scene out there? Any local clubs? I have a 72 LeMans

[Scarebird]

Don't know about Whidbey, but if you take the ferry there is a bit of stuff going on over here.

[Drag Star Le Mans]

There is a lot of Pontiacs around here, you will be happy. Hope you get here before the GTOAA Nationals next year.

[rambow]

Are you into showing or racing or both? Lots of both around here.

Car show scene every weekend in the summer & fall around here, and plenty of drag racers as well with tracks scattered around.

[wacker77]

I'm looking for both also looking to buy another car. So it sounds like I'll be just fine out there.

[70455HOVert]

Navy?

I spent the better part of 10 years on Whidbey...and may be headed back there in about a year, we'll see in March.

Northwest Legends is a good GTO club, but doing the commute to Seattle for the meetings in the GTO is a hair raising experience with the idiots on I-5.

LOTS of rain...so if you don't drive the car in the rain, or you're deployed over the 3-4 month dry season like I perpetually was, you won't be enjoying the car much while you're out there sadly.

[wacker77]

Ok, when is the dry season? I will drive the car if there is a little rain but don't want to get stuck in the pouring rain. If I can't drive it much then I guess I'll be able to spend more time restoring it.

[70455HOVert]

Roughly June-Sep. The rest of the time it just sort of pisses on you. No thunderstorms or anything like that.

Whidbey is in the rain shadow of the Olympics, but it's still very wet.

Good news is that there are original sheetmetal muscle cars every where up there. They only ever used cinders on the roads when or if it ever snows west of the Cascades.

[wacker77]

It's it line normal rain or like mist?

[70455HOVert]

It's never a thunderstorm. Mountains take care of that. Sometimes rain, sometimes drizzle and mist.

[Scarebird]

I do not know that last time you were up here but the climate has changed somewhat in the last 5 years. We still get lots of drizzle, but not for as long a time. We do get more storms now, with heavier rainfall. I live in what is known as the "convergence zone" - where the flows around the Olympics collides, driving air up and the moisture comes down. That has not been as pronounced the last years or so, seems to have moved north to Arlington. South Whidbey is much drier; even the foliage is different.

[wacker77]

So south Whidbey is drier than oak harbor? Sounds like it's a soft rain drizzle than regular rain. Is that right?

[Drag Star Le Mans]

I'm in Arlington and let me tell you we have had a lot of rain the last few years. More than normal for sure!

[70455HOVert]

If you research the Olympic rain shadow, you'll see that Whidbey falls in it, so it's actual rainfall is less than surrounding areas. Does this mean it's dry? Oh no my friend. South end of the island could be described as drier I suppose. I lived in Anacortes and of course was at NAS Whidbey every day. Another little factoid, Whidbey has the greatest number of VFR days per year of any NAS besides El Centro...but that just means the could deck is at 4,000'. Get ready to take lots of Vitamin D supplements, because even when it's not raining, it's still cloudy. It's like all the good weather for the year gets crammed into June-September.

[70455HOVert]

Oh, and I moved from there in the spring of '13.

[wacker77]

Thanks for all the great information! I've heard great things about it out there.

[70455HOVert]

In my experience, you either love it or you hate it. I didn't mind leaving.

[wacker77]

Well there seems to be a lot of outdoors things I can do and is gotta be better than norfolk.