Monday, May 12, 2025
A cloudy morning gave way to a calm, partly sunny afternoon, and Braesail and her crew set off from Reads Bay shortly after noon to visit nearby Watmough Bay, whose beauty several of our fellow boaters had mentioned to us during the AYC rendezvous. We motored along the scenic shores of Lopez Island for a short time, admiring the many pretty pocket beaches, swaths of woods, and shimmery-green meadows, and found the bay to be lovely indeed, with attractive sand beaches surrounded by thick forests, a soaring cliff at its north side, a few charming little islands along another side, and several mooring buoys bobbing about. After checking water depths around the buoys, however, we decided that the bay was too small and shallow to accommodate safely and comfortably a boat as large as Braesail, and we motored on to Eagle Harbor on Cypress Island, an anchorage we’d visited many times over the years, arriving there at about 3:30 pm and finding three power boats and one sailboat occupying mooring balls in the sheltered cove.
Once Braesail was safely attached to one of the anchorage’s many buoys (while the helms-person steers the boat to a position beside a buoy, which is firmly affixed to the sea floor, another sailor uses a boat-hook to snag the ring at the top of the mooring ball and threads a docking line through it, attaching the line’s end to a deck cleat in the boat’s bow and thus securing the boat to the buoy), Walt napped in the aft cabin, and I bathed in the sunshine pouring into the cockpit while chatting for about an hour with my friend Michelle, whom we’d met in Prince Rupert, BC, during our Alaska trip in 2022.
An afternoon chips-’n’-dip snack took care of our “Four o-Clock Munchies,” and we continued with our various computer projects until it was time for a late supper in the cockpit. The sun, as it sank behind the hills surrounding the harbor, sprinkled gold dust over the tops of the many evergreens surrounding the cove, gilding the branches from which we could hear the calls of the eagles after which the harbor is named—what a magical scene!
A prediction of strong overnight winds had influenced our decision to leave relatively open Reads Bay for more-sheltered Eagle Harbor, and as we finished our evening tasks, the waters in the anchorage began to sway Braesail around a little and gurgling wavelets began to slap her stern. Once in bed, I enjoyed the gentle rocking motion of the boat, but the percussive noises of the waves hitting the stern just behind my head made it difficult for me to sleep. I was still awake at 4 am when the wind did indeed begin to rise and to whistle and sigh and rattle in the rigging. Walt crawled out of bed and clambered up to the deck to check our attachment to the mooring ball—all was secure. He went back to sleep quickly, having seen that the wind was gusting to about 20 mph as predicted and there was no reason for concern, but I didn’t fall asleep until well after sunrise, when the wind and the water noises had subsided.
Braesail - A grand yacht in the Salish Sea 