Happiness in Henry Bay

It was wonderful to sleep late on a warm Saturday morning (September 24) and awaken to benign weather before tackling the straightening-up left over from Friday night. Fortunately, I had not suffered at all from le mal de mer during Braesail’s pitching-up-and-down and rolling-back-and-forth as we motored down Georgia Strait and Baynes Sound (and so I’d had no related clean-up to do!), but I did have to re-place and rearrange the items that had tipped over and tumbled about in the cabins, and Walt had some minor repairs and adjustments of the mast, boom, and dinghy davits (lifting/lowering system) to accomplish.

Since it was another lovely, calm, early-fall day, we decided, after completing all of our tasks, to leave spacious Henry Bay

and find our way to Tribune Bay on Hornby Island about 16 miles away, an anchorage that we visited nearly 30 years ago when our son was with us on our 27-ft. sailboat, Sagres. The bay features a sweeping curve of lovely, sandy beach backed by woods and is large enough to accommodate a great many boats (it is holding about 20 this evening). En route, we spotted a swimming seal’s sleek, black head, heard the barking of unseen sea lions emanating from some shoreline rocks, and passed the eye-catching Chrome Point Lighthouse, which sits atop limestone into which prehistoric peoples inscribed fascinating shapes and figures, resulting in a display of the West Coast’s widest variety of petroglyphs.

Walt continued to test the new Vesper, and found that boats farther away than about two miles still cannot locate us. He will let the very helpful Campbell River marine store representative know on Monday and then probably contact the manufacturer. Fortunately, most of the Vesper’s functions ARE working, and we are better off than we were before Walt installed the new unit.

We anchored in Tribune Bay at about 4:30 and dined in the cockpit while watching the sun slink off to bed behind the low hills to the west. We will remain here on Sunday, hoping to be able to sing the Compline service online, and aren’t sure where we will go thereafter.