Thursday-Friday, September 3-4, 2026
Over the course of a lovely, cool, largely wind-free day, Walt nearly completed the construction of the “preventer” on which he’d worked in Braesail’s cockpit through almost all of Wednesday. That enclosed area, with its central fold-out table and benches on three sides to serve as work surfaces, two winches to use in pulling lines into shape, and plenty of natural light to make line splicing, knot-tying, and sewing easier, served him as an excellent workshop! I wrote email to friends, did some reading and boat clean-up tasks, and watched an interesting variety of boats motor into the cove, which had been relatively empty when we arrived on Tuesday evening. Some skippers anchored their craft away from the shores, and some, like us, anchored closer to the shores and stern-tied, and I enjoyed watching the procedures.
We exhausted our supply of Nanaimo bars after dinner, and caught up on reading, correspondence, German, and blog-post writing during the evening. I happened to glance out of a port-light and noticed a rich pink stain spreading over the water, so I climbed into the cockpit, opened a side-curtain, and photographed yet another breathtaking sunset, the day’s parting gift for which I gave its Creator thanks!
With the work on the “preventer” very nearly completed, and Braesail’s lithium batteries running a little low on charge after two-and-a-half cloudy days during which our solar panels weren’t able to collect many photons, we decided to leave Pirates Cove around noon on Friday and motor to a marina which would provide charging facilities for the batteries. Walt slipped our stern line out of the ring on the chain fastened into the rocky shoreline, and while reeling it in, he noticed that it was seriously frayed at one point and would need some repair. We raised our very muddy anchor and motored away toward the northern tip of Valdes Island the southern end of Gabriola Island, on which our destination, Page’s Resort and Marina, is located in Silva Bay, a place we’d very much enjoyed visiting a year ago. The current running against us through Gabriola Passage shoved Braesail from side to side for a very short time, but the rest of our one-hour journey was uneventful.
The guest dock in Page’s Marina was just large enough to accommodate Braesail, and as members of the Bellingham Yacht Club, we were able to arrange to spend one night there without charge (our Saturday night stay will cost about $100 US, including electric power). After docking, we began to feed the boat’s hungry batteries using shore power, went ashore to check in and view the wares in the small grocery-and-book store (the book collection includes some 450 titles by island authors and artists), and collect a map and some information about bus service, the Sunday Farmers’ Market, and various island attractions.
Back on the boat, we looked over our collected literature and decided to spend Saturday using $5 day-passes to ride around the island, enjoy the sights, and visit the village around the ferry dock (the ferry runs between Gabriola and the city of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island) at the opposite end of the island where there are stores, galleries, etc. Next came a nap for Walt and a Zoom visit with my brother and his wife in Springfield, IL, for me. The cloud blanket above the marina thickened as we ate dinner, but no rain fell, and some sunshine is supposed to brighten our Saturday sauntering.
Braesail - A grand yacht in the Salish Sea 