Decatur Island is one of the smaller, more remote islands in the San Juan archipelago of Washington state. It lies in the Salish Sea just east of Lopez Island across Lopez Sound and south of Blakely Island across Thatcher Pass, within San Juan County. At 3.524 square miles, the island is a compact patchwork of forest, pasture, and shoreline, with no commercial center and almost no public infrastructure — the closest it comes is a single public boat ramp in Davis Bay on the east side. The island was named in 1841 by the Wilkes Expedition, the U.S. naval surveying mission, for Stephen Decatur, the celebrated early-American naval officer. Its modern history has been one of quiet settlement rather than development: a small agricultural community took root, and the island has remained lightly populated ever since. Today the year-round population numbers only a few dozen, swelling modestly with seasonal and part-time residents in summer. Decatur's defining feature is its isolation. There is no Washington State Ferry service, so access is by private boat or by small plane into a private airstrip. The San Juan Preservation Trust holds land at the island's southern tip and allows public day-use there, but otherwise the island is almost entirely private property, much of it held in large parcels and community-shared tracts. Community life is informal and collaborative, organized around the one-room school, shared roads and docks, and the practical work of maintaining a place without municipal services. For those who choose it, Decatur offers one of the most secluded residential settings in the Pacific Northwest, a place where the rhythms of tide and weather shape daily life more than the schedules of the mainland.