As planned, Walt and I left the lively Echo Bay Marina at 11:30 on a “misty, moisty morning,” Walt having purchased a loaf of bread and some chocolate-ship cookies in the marina store where he paid our bill for dinner and one night’s moorage. Thick clouds shrouded the hilltops as we motored with almost no wind at all to disturb the water, passing sheer cliffs, forested hills, and all manner of islands. We could see, as in most of the areas through which we motored, the many scars left on the hillsides by clear-cut logging and the creation of “skids” over the granite rock faces down which the evergreen logs were rolled into the sea to be corralled in “booms” and dragged away to mills by tugboats. Some of the older wounds have been healed to some extent by new growth of brush and deciduous trees, but other more recent ones are still raw and gray-dirty-ugly–so very sad to see!
We didn’t encounter as much drifting debris as we had on Monday, but we did see gulls bobbing about on the surfaces of the waters like puffs of gray and white foam that would suddenly sprout wings and soar skyward. We’d read in our cruising guides about the historic floating village of Sullivan Bay on North Broughton Island, another friendly, colorful (in every sense of the word!), whimsical, flower-filled community that mixes wooden structures and float homes transported to the bay in the early 1940s, and so we tied up at the transient moorage dock at about 1:30 pm to see if we could find cinnamon buns (no luck) and/or ice cream (this we found, though it was rather expensive!). After a pleasant stroll around the wooden “streets” and a visit to the general store, not far from which we noted a post bearing directional arrows pointing and providing distance information to all the great cities of the world, including Edmonds, WA (!), and in which we encountered some of the boaters we’d met at Lagoon Cove and again in Kwatsi Bay, we launched forth once more and arrived in quiet Claydon Bay on the BC coast at around 3 pm.
There were only a few other boats anchored in the north basin beyond a lovely island, and we had no difficulty in finding a safe spot for Braesail. The wind had finally found us about 15 minutes before we entered the large bay with its vibrant green wooded shores and reflecting waters, but not long after our anchor was set, the breezes became bored and departed for the day, leaving us to float undisturbed on the sea’s satiny surface throughout the afternoon and evening.
Walt napped in the aft cabin and I rested in the cockpit, and then we shared chips and dip followed not long after by a dinner of ham slices, potatoes, and salad. While I cleaned the galley and then wrote this post, Walt worked on the radio’s cockpit handset, which works only intermittently (we’ll have to buy a new one); the radio at the navigation station is fine, however. Walt is now beginning to learn French organist/composer Olivier Messiaen’s long and challenging multi-sectional piece, “The Nativity of the Lord,” which he would like to perform in some parish churches this December, so he listened to a recording while following the score he printed before we left Everett.
It’s now about 10:30 pm and getting quite dark at last. We plan to stay here another day, and will see what it brings us!
Braesail - A grand yacht in the Salish Sea 