We found that Xanadu had already left the Jones Island dock when we rose at about 9 am, and Walt provided us with another hearty buckwheat pancake breakfast before he participated in a phone conference with his fellow Society of Scholar Priests’ board members. Joy and I caught up on e-mail and prepared to begin the short trip to Friday Harbor shortly before noon. The wind would have been adequate for sailing, but Braesail needed to have her batteries charged (the charging process seemed to have returned to normal) and the wind was, as usual, blowing against us, so we motored and enjoyed the island scenery.
As we entered the Friday Harbor Marina and searched for a place in which to tie up, whom should we see in a space near the landing spot we hoped to occupy but Xanadu once again! John helped with the mooring lines, and Braesail was soon tucked in snugly just ahead of his attractive craft. It was very pleasant to see and chat with him and Marsha again!
A carrot/ginger soup lunch was followed by an excursion into town to register for reciprocal docking privileges (a benefit of being members of the Bellingham Yacht Club!), dispose of a heavy sack of garbage, and buy a few groceries. After filling our little fold-able shore cart, we wandered over to the nearby ice cream shop for an afternoon treat; the mountain huckleberry ice cream I selected made taste buds and tummy VERY happy indeed! Steel-gray cloud troops had been marshaling their forces all morning, and as we walked down the hill past the shops and then through the pretty shore-side park to our “neighborhood” on F Dock, they began to fire small volleys of raindrops–time to take cover in Braesail’s cozy cabins!
It wasn’t long before the rain clouds ceased fire and Walt and I proceeded to fill the 250-gallon water tank using our hose, which was JUST long enough to reach from the spigot to the mouth of our water tank–a long, slow process! Walt had just settled at the navigation station’s desk after the task had been completed when I noticed that a large sail boat was slipping alongside Braesail to raft up (one condition of using the San Juan Yacht Club’s reciprocal privileges is that one must make one’s boat available for rafting). Walt climbed out on the deck to assist in the rafting process, which went smoothly, and then settled into the aft cabin to take his usual afternoon nap. I tried to catch up on the writing of these bog posts.
A grilled steak dinner (YUM!) was followed by my this-time-successful baking of a batch of 18 blueberry mini-muffins, which we consumed while Joy and I played Farkel (I won both games–amazing!) and Walt continued his reading of another book for the class he will be teaching at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Seattle this fall. The hissing of a barrage of small rain bullets accompanied my late-evening computer tasks and our journeys to our beds, but it wasn’t long before all had become quiet on the marina front–sleep well, everyone!
Braesail - A grand yacht in the Salish Sea 