At dinner with a friend

Friday, May 9, 2025

After a lazy morning in Indian Cove,

we motored under partly cloudy skies to the town of Friday Harbor with the “First Mate” at the helm. Staff from Anacortes Yacht Charters (AYC) grabbed our docking lines in the marina, and we were secured in a spot right across the dock from the seaplane landing area (I enjoyed watching the planes come and go throughout the weekend). Walt and I took showers, making good use of the hot water produced by Braesail’s engine, and performed some clean-up tasks before walking up the docks to shore, passing through an attractive flower-decked park, and making our way into the downtown area and up the hill to the Friday Harbor Grand B&B, where our friend and the B&B’s owner, Farhad, lives and manages an outstanding establishment (as well as a guest house proprietor, he is a sailor, pilot, home builder, pianist, singer, piano-tuner and -mover, apiarist, gardener, chef, and civic activist, and served as the Mayor of Friday Harbor for some years).

Farhad served us a delightful meal, baked cookies for dessert for us and for his paying guests while Walt tried out the harpsichord in the B&B’s “great room,” took me on a tour of his large and highly productive garden to visit his hard-working hens (his meals feature “garden-to-table” eggs and produce), and then entertained us and the B&B guests with an hour of beautiful music that he played on his grand piano and on the harpsichord (he does this every night to keep the musical instruments, AND his musical skills, exercised!). He invited Walt to play some pieces on the harpsichord, after which we enjoyed chatting with him and some our fellow music-loving “concert goers.”

At a little after 9 pm, we walked back down to Braesail as darkness gathered, bringing with us some of the excellent sourdough bread Farhad had given us to enjoy. In the cockpit, we found a gift bag from the AYC owners that contained a large, scented candle for outdoor mosquito control, two Ghirardelli chocolate bars, and a sizable navy-blue kitchen towel bearing this text: “I’m sorry for what I said while I was docking the boat!” That’s OK—you’re forgiven!

It wasn’t long before we were snuggling into our comfy queen-sized bed in the aft cabin as we looked forward to enjoying “muffins and mimosas” the following morning aboard the large and luxurious power boat docked across from Braesail—the beginning of the Anacortes Yacht Charters annual boat owners’ rendezvous weekend.