Starting My Yurt Life on Orcas Island, WA

[OrcasGuy]

My wife and I have owned a beautiful little piece of ocean-view land on Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands of WA state for about 9 years now. Over that time we have enjoyed camping up there in the summers, but we love spending time there and finally decided we needed a more "permanent vacation home." Since we do not have the money to build a house, our little community on Orcas does allow yurts to be constructed as temporary residences....although they also don't define temporary...so we are just GOING FOR IT. We plan on using the yurt throughout the year as much as possible to spend more time away from the hectic life we live here near Seattle.

Platform Construction
I began digging the holes for my platform a few weeks ago and decided to go with the 12" x 12" concrete piers currently sold at Home Depot. For the most part, I dug about 8-10" into the ground, tamped the soil, laid down some gravel and leveled the pier. The frost depth in the San Juan Islands is supposed to be 12" but I thought I would be okay digging 8-10" since we are pretty close to the water and really don't get prolonged periods of freezing cold. I'll let you know how that works out.
Over the last 2 weekends, I have placed 13 piers in the ground that will serve as the base for my 16' yurt (which we recently ordered from Colorado Yurt Co. It should come in April) I am super-excited to be starting my "yurt life", because I find my time in the islands to be the most relaxing in my life and I can't imagine any better way to spend time there than in a yurt. I'll post a few pics of our site and concrete pier setup (I've been using the PacificYurt 16' platform plans).