Joy, Walt, and I enjoyed a quiet, relaxing day as Braesail floated in the aquamarine waters of Squirrel Cove and swung slowly back and forth in the gentle breezes that busied themselves with herding the flocks of fluffy cloud sheep that grazed languidly in the sapphire sky fields above the bay, and that dropped into the cockpit now and then to blow “hello!” Walt read and read and began to write his presentation for the conference he’s attending in Leuven, Belgium, in early August. Joy finished one novel, worked some online puzzles, and started another book. I wrote blog posts and read articles and email, reviewed some material in a sailing manual, tried a challenging anatomy quiz with Joy (a nurse) on the “FreeRice” website, practiced my know-tying, and took Coracle out for an hour’s row in mid-afternoon in ideal conditions: air temperature in the low 70s, water temperature 70 degrees, winds cool, light, and very variable.
I rowed around a curve in the nearby shore to see a small, grassy nook beside the rocky bed of the rollicking reversing rapids, which, with the tide at its lowest point for the day, were running most rapidly and chattering merrily. 
I then rowed farther along the shores in the company of a drifting jelly, the crown of whose creamy parasol was decorated with a four-lobed figure like a four-leaf clover. In one spot I spied a drift log that looked to me like a sea serpent with pointed fangs that was poking its head out of its granite cave to be photographed.
On to the mouth of another indentation in the shore I rowed, occasionally working hard against the light winds that wanted to spin Coracle around like a top. As I made my way back toward the placid Braesail I circumnavigated a small, tree-covered island, some of whose surrounding waters were shallow enough that I had to paddle slowly and carefully between the shell-covered rocks on one side of the main “channel” and similar shell-covered rocks on the other. Upon my arrival at my “home port,” Joy helped me land Coracle at Braesail’s bathing platform by grabbing and holding the “painter” (bow line) so that I could clamber aboard the tie the line around a cleat. I spend a quarter of an hour sitting on the platform and soaking and swirling my feet in the delightful water and watching one, then another, and then four or five small sleek fish, each about three inches long, scurry in and out from under the dinghy at a depth of only a few inches.
Back in the boat’s cockpit, I enjoyed a sunshine-soaked nap and then returned to writing this post as Walt began to cook dinner (grilled chicken). After KP duties were done by Joy, Walt took a break from his writing to run the three of us around the perimeter of the large cove in Coracle, this time propelled by the 2.3-hp outboard motor.
The evening was cool and beautiful; the tide was high and the reversing rapids had changed direction, allowing us to see into the lagoon they were now filling; and bubbling fish drew small circles on the surface of the glassy water.
Joy and I played two games of Farkle before “closing up shop” for the day. Walt continued to read and write . . .
Braesail - A grand yacht in the Salish Sea 