Saturday, September 8, 2018: On the boat again

When can we take the boat out again? Walt and I enjoyed several short trips on Braesail during May, June, and early July that included visits to Friday Harbor and Roche Harbor on San Juan Island, Matia and Sucia Islands, the Pender Islands not far north of the Canadian border, Stuart Island, and Eastsound on Orcas Island, but scurrying to prepare the boat for the charter season with Anacortes Yacht Charters and then the death of my 96-year-old mother in her home in the little southern California mountain community of Idyllwild on July 19 and the subsequent weeks spent in dealing with her affairs caused the summer to disappear into a fog of activities that did not allow for extended cruising! At last, with a stack of financial forms filled out and mailed and my mother’s house, in which she had lived for 62 years, cleaned up and out and sold, we have found time for a two-week trip with Walt’s 93-year-old mom, Joy, aboard as well for the third summer in a row.

Saturday morning was a task-tornado that finally whirled Walt, Martin, Joy, and me into the Anacortes Marina parking area and deposited us at Braesail’s dock beside a mound of supplies and gear. Martin proceeded to stage the boat’s interior and shoot some excellent publicity photos for the 2019 charter season while the rest of us dragged cart-load after cart-load of food and clothing and computers down the steep ramp to Braesail’s side. By the time the photo-shoot was over and everything was stowed aboard, it was about 2 pm and clouds blanketed the sky, keeping the breezes snugly tucked in. We motored until there was sufficient wind to encourage Martin, who had enjoyed a pleasant nap in the cockpit, to grab a biscuit and his jacket and his camera and launch Coracle, our inflatable dinghy, from the boat’s stern with assistance from his dad As I was preparing to clamber into position at the helm, Joy and I glimpsed a seal head or two and a minke whale fin, but I couldn’t pause to watch for further marine mammalian activity. Walt raised all three of the boat’s sails as I turned the vessel into position to catch enough wind to round their bellies, and Martin zoomed along side and around Braesail in Coracle, racing ahead of us and then turning to dodge across in front of us while snapping photos, sometimes sitting and controlling the dinghy with one hand, and sometimes standing in the little craft and shooting away. Martin finished his work just as raindrops began to inscribe small circles on the sea’s surface, and Walt helped him to bring the dinghy up to Braesail’s stern platform and to scramble aboard. He’d had great fun and his photos were wonderful!

We arrived at the day’s destination, Inati Bay on Lummi Island, at about 6:30 and chose an anchoring spot in the lovely forest-ringed cove near two other gently-bobbing boats. Walt prepared a fine steak dinner, after consuming which we played a good game of Hearts over tea and biscotti (Martin won). The tapping of rain fingertips on the cabin tops accompanied a deep slumber that left us all well-rested and the cove refreshingly rinsed.