Monday, September 22
A seal popped his head out of the water to greet us as we arrived in long, narrow, peaceful James Bay on Prevost Island a little after 11 am after a restful night, a holding-tank pump-out, and a half-hour motoring trip from Ganges Harbour. The bay is said to be challenging to boaters seeking anchorage because its deep water shallows quite quickly at the head of the bay and one must also work around vessels already at anchor. After three attempts, our anchor dug itself into the mud at the bay’s bottom at a distance that would allow safe “swinging room” for us and other boats. Two of the three other watercraft present when we arrived soon left the anchorage, and three more arrived later, and I watched them struggle a bit with anchoring.
The day was just as spectacularly beautiful as Sunday had been, with sunshine filling cloudless azure skies and a playful breeze setting the anchored boats to swinging gently around their anchors. Walt worked on our Spectra desalinator, cleaning its filters and being pleased that it produced about 5.5 gallons of fresh water over the course of an hour (the filters need to be replaced, a chore for another day); he lowered the Anacortes Yacht Charters burgee (a distinguishing flag, regardless of its shape, of a recreational boating organization that usually has the triangular shape of a pennant) and hoisted our Canadian Maple Leaf flag; and he installed fast-charging ports for our electronic devices in the areas near our bedsides in the aft cabin and near the navigation station in the main cabin, replacing the slower-charging ports he’d put in those places some years ago. I worked on German lessons, deleted junk email, wrote to friends, read short sermons written by the monks of the Society of St. John the Evangelist, and loved sitting in Braesail’s cockpit and watching the water creep up and down on the gravelly beaches and the rocky reefs with the changing tides and the brightening and fading of the light on the boats and shoreline trees with the passing hours.
I also had some fun reading through the names of boats in the area tracked by the WatchMate app on my smartphone and finding two cute ones: “Odd-a-Sea” and “Frog Prints” (here are some other favorites: “Knot Today,” “Sail la Vie,” and “Seas the Day”).
Sharing supper, completing galley clean-up, doing more reading, and watching some sailing videos concluded our relaxing day at anchor, and when the breeze and the sun slipped off to bed behind the surrounding hills, we followed their lead and slipped into OUR bed.
Braesail - A grand yacht in the Salish Sea 