Dinghy in Conover Cove

Tuesday, September 23

At about noon on another gloriously glittering fall day, Braesail and her crew motored out of perfectly placid James Bay after a perfectly silent night and a pleasant morning of reading, doing DuoLingo German exercises, and writing.

High winds were forecast for the coming night, and James Bay was open to the north, the direction from which those winds were to be blowing, and we had heard nothing from the winery on Saturna Island that Walt had contacted about scheduling a tasting. We therefore decided to head for Conover Cove on Wallace Island, an anchorage, protected at its northern end, near which we had stayed in the past (in Princess Cove), but in which we had never spent a night because of its small size and shallowness.

There was almost no wind at all, and Braesail slipped along over the sea’s silky surface as if she were sliding over a sparkling silver-blue mirror. Out of curiosity, we ducked into a tiny, charming nook on Galiano Island called Retreat Cove, where there was a small dock, some buildings on the shore, a few boats at anchor, fascinating sandstone sculptures lining one shore, and an island guarding the cove’s mouth. The cove was, however, too small and crowded for Braesail to squeeze into safely, and so we motored on to Conover Cove, arriving at about 2 pm. We checked our tide guides carefully to make sure that the boat would have sufficient water under her keel over the next two days to make anchoring worry-free, passed several boats already anchored and stern-tied in the lovely cove, found a stern-tying chain fastened to a rock near one shore, and decided that we COULD stay without difficulties. We dropped the anchor in about 9 ft. of water (the boat’s keel reaches down about 7 ft. below the hull), and Walt rowed Coracle to the rock with the end of the stern-tying line in his hand, I paid out the line from its reel as he went, he fed the line through the chain, and, with the boat-end of the line attached to one stern cleat, he rowed the other end back to attach it to the other stern cleat. Now, even if some wind should find its way into the cove from the north, we should be comfortable and secure!

At a little before 4 pm, having enjoyed a snack of corn chips and salsa, Walt napped in the aft cabin while I took Coracle out for a tour around the cove in the wonderful afternoon light. I rowed from Braesail’s bathing platform, startling into flight a heron as I did so, along the eastern shore with its sculpted sandstone boulders, to the northern end of the cove with its muddy beach. Here I heard some rustling in the surrounding brush, and sat silently to see if the deer, of whose slender legs I’d caught a glimpse or two, might emerge from the undergrowth, but they remained invisible. I rowed back along the cove’s fantastical western rim

and across its sea-facing mouth, along the southwestern banks where I noticed a “wishbone” tree fallen across another trunk and down a bank

and a disintegrating outhouse with door and walls but little roof, to the also-very-muddy beach at the cove’s southern tip, where Nature was returning to herself a small, abandoned boat.

I wound my watery way back up along the rocky eastern side of the cove, past the dock where other boats were moored near the ramp to shore, across the just-barely-submerged lines attaching the other anchored vessels to secure rock-bound chains, and back to Braesail. What a wonderful hour of rowing, drifting, sitting quietly, taking pictures, and giving thanks for the beauty around me!

Back on the boat, I spent a half-hour lying flat on my back on the foredeck, enjoying the lingering warmth of the sinking sun and the cool breath of the whispering breeze, and overhearing a raucous exchange between a seagull (sounding like a petulant child) and a raven (sounding like a donkey braying)—was there a winner of this debate? It was soon time for supper, clean-up, some trip planning, and the writing of this blog entry. WILL there be wind tonight?