Summery Sun in Inati Bay

Tuesday, May 27 through Thursday, May 29, 2025

Braesail’s crew had hoped to head for Inati Bay on Lummi Island in the San Juan Islands on Monday, but neither of them felt particularly energetic that day after a busy weekend, and so they loaded a few food stuffs and items of clothing onto the boat on Tuesday and left the dock in the Anacortes Marina not long after noon on Tuesday, while two harbor seals observed the departure. A brisk breeze filled the sails as we headed for Lummi Island, and we enjoyed some two hours of lovely sailing at 4-6 kts. under a broadly smiling sun.

By about 3 pm we were anchored in the beautiful bay as the only vessel present.

How delightful it was to relax in the sun-filled cockpit while eavesdropping on the splashy conversations carried on by the wavelets washing the rocks and gravel on the forest-lined shores, listening to the sighing comments of the breezes in the swaying trees beyond the beach, tuning an ear to the twittering and whistling of various unseen birds, and drowsing in the hushing whispers of a small fall of water that ribboned its way down a gray-brown rock face hiding in the shadows!

We had noticed that the Spectra (our desalinator) had been producing less water per hour than usual during our sail to the bay, despite having had its carbon filter changed very recently, and that our refrigeration system was not causing our freezer to get as cold as it needed to be in order to firm up the pint of blackberry/chocolate gelato for which it was caring. We did some cleaning of filters and debris traps and Walt made some adjustments, resulting in the freezer’s chilling its contents properly, but his work didn’t seem to improve the Spectra’s output; more work/parts will probably be needed.

Napping, German exercises, snacking on chips and dip, reading, and video-watching occupied the rest of our day, and we weren’t hungry enough to down anything more than deliciously ripe watermelon for supper. The wind retired for the night not long after we did, and our rest was quiet and peaceful despite some tapping of small waves against the stern—were they trying to see if we were still awake?

A very warm Wednesday dawned bright and beautiful, and we spent most of the day resting, reading, and enjoying the beauty of our surroundings as the tides rose and fell from about 10 feet of water to 25 feet and back again over the course of the day, gradually concealing and then revealing the rock formations and driftwood sculptures that lined the shores of the bay. In late afternoon, Walt and I gave Coracle, our dinghy, some exercise, enjoying the fact that its pleasantly purring outboard motor allowed us to proceed slowly along the bay’s beaches and through the shallows near its bordering rock outcroppings.

As we were preparing for bed at around midnight, the anchor-drag alarm on Walt’s phone sounded, and we clambered up to Braesail’s deck with our spotlight to make sure that our anchor was still securely in place and the boat was NOT drifting off into the darkness. All appeared to be well, so we climbed into bed with no explanation for the alarm—a glitch of some sort?—and it and we spent a very silent and tranquil rest-of-the-night, with gentle rain washing the boat and the bay.

Thursday morning found Braesail in the same spot in which she she’d been floating throughout the night—a very good thing! After a light breakfast and anchor-raising and -rinsing, we began our two-hour motor journey from Inati Bay back to the Anacortes Marina under cloudy, drippy skies. A steady wind blew scattered raindrops directly over Braesail’s bow, and so we used the engine to power our trip home.

After docking and completing pack-up not long after noon, we finished the gelato we’d begun to consume on Wednesday, finding its texture pleasantly firm—what a delightful end-of-excursion treat! We arrived back in Everett in mid-afternoon after a brief but very restful stay in an exquisite place, and we haven’t yet decided where we might go next, or when.