I was looking out the salon window at a vulture that was being tossed about by the wind. Immense wingspan, little body… an aeronautical wonder of wonders. Elegant when hovering aloft riding the thermals. A bit unnerving when sitting on a fence post eyeballing a dead something or other for lunch. Reddish head, naked of feathers, all the better to devour road kill. Little beady black eyes. Well, now it is gone. Blown downwind to other hunting grounds. Quite like those who cruise about in sail boats depending on favorable winds. No. I’m not calling those who sail… vultures. Far from it… just that sailors are so very subject to the vagaries of the wind, it’s direction, and velocity. I was after all a sailor as well for thirty plus years. It is different in a power yacht. Wind and current are important to us, but we careen about in all directions of the compass and snigger when heading into the wind hiding behind our nice glass windshield, in the protection of our toasty pilothouse.
So, I think yesterday was “Day Four” of our latest excursion. Day 4 of when one might ask. An immense succession of days really… culminating in another 4, just the other side of a triad or a triptych looking for a foursome. A mere continuation on our theme: cruising about in a motorized boat in search of thither and yon. We are anchored just now due West of Thither. Yon is just a few miles away to the Northwest, always a bit more elusive, she is…
Yesterday was a reprise day. Garrison Bay. English Camp. Bell Point trail. Why move? That is for later or the day after later. We hiked 2.6 miles. Les in her new higher topped Salomon Quest hikers and me just ambling along in my old Salomon hikers. Both meet the needs of tackling roots, forest duff and the odd protruding rock, not to mention that they handily shed water just like the butt of a duck. Not that any of that matters a whit. Our ancestors did it bare foot.
What does matter: we both walked 2.6 miles in the forest with Leo bounding about at our sides. Les, with her nearly healed broken ankle, and me with my healing lower back. Fourteen weeks ago, Les was wheelchair bound. Seven months ago I couldn’t walk more than 200 meters due to pinched nerves and the resultant sciatica. That is the real story here. We can both now walk 3 to 4 miles on forest trails. And we are both so grateful for that.
The other part of our story. Connectivity. We now have a T-Mobile 5G Gateway. Before we were handicapped by 4G or a wi-fi antenna that would pull in signal from wifi hotspots etc. No more. The 5G network is alive and well in the San Juans, and so far… we’ve seen strong signal since we left Port Ludlow. So… what does that mean? More accessible email and more blog posts. We hope that once in Canada we will have good signal. We will be reliant on the Canadian cell systems that contract with T-Mobile for our gateway source. We’ll see.
In the interim… we’ll keep up the blog posts. Gives the Captain something to do. Meaningful or not… For us it provides snapshots of where we have traveled over the past few years. Something to read in the future while playing the reminiscence game of life. Where were you in “22”? That sort of thing. So… we will continue to document our travels throughout the Salish Sea and beyond, until we don’t feel like doing that anymore.
For now… a light rain is falling in Garrison Bay. It is expected to diminish or stop later… but then again, this is the Salish Sea. Precipitation in all of its forms is just part of the bargain. We are thinking of weighing anchor and moving to the Northwest, closer to Yon. Prevost Harbor on Stuart Island would do nicely.
Let us know about your meanderings in the comment section. And if there are other tangentials you’d like me to explain in more detail about our life style and activities… you can ask me with a comment, and I’ll attempt to respond or write about it.
Northwest Boating Travels With Blair, Les, and Leo 