The second short trip: Part II

On the morning of September 28, we motored from pleasant Mill Bay (which was a place new to us) to Royal Cove on Portland Island (a place we’d visited on Sagres many years ago), dropped anchor, and tied the boat’s stern to the rocky shore by threading a line through a ring drilled into a large boulder. I saw three raccoons scrambling up the bank from the shore as Walt did the stern-tying, but I was focusing on the stern line and not my smartphone’s camera! We enjoyed our stay in the  small, wooded cove from which one can watch the BC Ferries humming back and forth (seeing them at night, like floating castles with all their lights glittering as they glide along, is a special treat for me!).

We enjoyed a lovely, mostly-sunny day with a cool breeze puffling around the cove.

On Friday we crossed back into US waters, and were able to sail gently and peacefully for a good while using only the genoa sail (large sail at the bow of the boat) on our way to commodious, sun-splashed Westcott Bay, where, from time to time, we’d purchased terrific fresh seafood in season).

After a restful night there, we traveled on to the town of Friday Harbor, a place where we often stop to purchase supplies, so that Walt could buy some tools with which to make some modifications to the boat’s plumbing. We arrived on a clear, sparkling Saturday evening at a marina in Fisherman Bay (another place to which we’d sailed Sagres long ago) near Lopez Village on Lopez Island; mooring the boat was quite challenging because of the strong currents that tried their best to shove the boat into the dock! Walt and I finally managed the landing safely after several unsuccessful tries: I was able to slip off Braesail’s deck and onto a large open stretch of the dock during one of those tries, and I then hurried around to the edge of our assigned slip to help keep the boat from slamming into it and into the other boat in the slip as Walt maneuvered Braesail into place. WHEW!!

  On Sunday morning, we walked most of the way to Grace Episcopal Church, about 1.5 miles from the marina. A resort shuttle bus took us the final part of the way after to the church after we’d stopped at a small coffee shop. We very much enjoyed the lay-led worship at the lovely church: hearty singing by the surprisingly large congregation, well-played pipe organ music, a heart-breaking farewell sermon by a well-known Seattle organist who now lives somewhere in the San Juan Islands and who can no longer play for health reasons, and a surprise visit with a long-time friend (his parents had a home on Lopez Island for many years, and he and his wife are refurbishing it).

Our friend gave us a ride back to the marina, where we prepared to leave for the dock on James Island (another site we hadn’t visited for a very long time) at about noon. We waited until the current was not running as powerfully, and we had an easy departure and transit, but the current was stronger right near the James Island dock than Walt had expected after consulting the tides-and-currents table for the day, and we were pushed forcefully AWAY from the dock whenever we tried to get close. I prayed that we would have help docking the boat if we needed it–and we DID need assistance and we did receive it! A couple on the dock waited to leave on their boat until they had helped us tie ours up safely (it took three attempts), and I said some sincere THANK-YOUs to them and to God! We then gave THEM some assistance as they pulled their powerboat away from their mooring. I walked up the dock to the pebbled beach and then up the hill to the island’s “saddle,” and then down the other side of the hill to look across the water to the east–what a wonderful view of Mt. Baker! 

After a beautiful, mild, sunny Sunday evening,

rain arrived on Monday morning, so we stayed cozy and warm in Braesail’s cabins at the dock on James Island until Tuesday morning, when we had to return to Anacortes so that Braesail could be prepared for the charterers planning to take her out on Thursday.

We were again able to sail for a short while on our way back to the Anacortes Marina, and once there, we pumped the holding tank and took on fuel and water before lugging all of our food and gear up the docks to the car. Walt got some help from an Anacortes Yacht Charters employee with the unclogging of the aft toilet’s sewage line, a problem that had appeared just that morning that proved fairly simple to solve.

Despite some rainy spells, we’d enjoyed a wonderful dozen days away and an easy return trip, but little did we know that we both would begin to feel ill back at home on Tuesday night, and that we would test positive for COVID-19 the next day–after 3.5 years of successful avoidance and getting all of our vaccinations . . . Will we feel well enough to give Braesail some more exercise before our presently-planned winter excursion in mid-January? Walt has a number of boat projects lined up to work on between now and then, of course!