Monday, June 10, 2024
The winds that were supposed to sweep through Alert Bay on Sunday never appeared, and, after a Monday morning chat with Peggy and Steve, our rafted neighbors, they untied their lines from Braesail and motored out of the Boat Basin. Braesail was tucked in between two other boats, one fore and the other aft, and this made our exit a bit tricky; several men on another finger pier watched Walt back out of our snug space at the dock and then back into the fairway (I had to insert a fender between the corner of our stern and the dock at one point), and saw him very skillfully back all the way out from behind the stone breakwater and turn into open water sometime after 10 am.
We had almost no wind on a gray morning and currents weren’t strong, and so our passage across Blackfish Sound and into the Broughton Islands was not as twirly and bumpy as it had been on Saturday afternoon. At one point, we saw that the Holland America cruise ship Westerdam was heading for our starboard (right) side, and Walt radioed her captain to let him know that Braesail would change course and pass behind her (her wake brought us some rocky wavelets!). At about that time, I saw the dorsal fin of a humpback whale break the surface to our port (left), but it showed me no more of itself than that, sorry to say!
As we wandered around the fascinating islands, islets, and rocks in search of a secure anchoring spot, we crept into a nook called Bootleg Cove; it was lovely and sheltered but we decided that it was TOO snug to accommodate Braesail comfortably, and we therefore wound our way out and headed for commodious Waddington Bay on northeast Bonwick Island, dropping anchor in about 30 feet of water at about 1:30 pm as the only boat present in a very large space. There was absolutely no wind at all in the tree-and-rock-lined bay, and the dark green water was satin smooth, reflecting the surrounding rock clusters and making them look like totem poles lying on their sides along the shores (we’ve loved seeing this effect numerous times during our travels).
As I sat in the cockpit working through and checking the 460 changes that I had suggested and that the author had made in a 275-page book of sermons (an excellent thing to do when there is no connectivity!), there was silence apart from the occasional chirrupping of eagles and other unseen birds, and the boat sat perfectly still—what soothing PEACE!
At about 6 pm another sailboat arrived and anchored at quite a distance, and by about 7:30 the thickening clouds were beginning to spill their contents into the bay. Walt made supper, I did the washing up and returned to my work on the sermon book, Walt worked on travel planning, and we later fell asleep to the rhythms of the raindrops on the cabin top.
Braesail - A grand yacht in the Salish Sea 