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Easing Back to Civilization
Wow, it's August. This marks the halfway point of my trip. I can’t believe it. I feel as if I have grown and learned so much about myself. We woke and sailed off anchor. Soon we were cruising downwind wing and wing. Debbie steered all day. I re-sealed around the windows…a new leak developed during that downpour. We went through the Penn Islands and Plunger Passage and arrived at Whaletown on Cortes Island by early afternoon.
There was a government dock there so we managed to raft up to a fishing boat. Our landing
was a bit bumpy but not too bad. We went up to the store and they tried to tell us that we
couldn’t moor there. They said the dock was for locals and we were welcome to anchor
out but we couldn’t stay. "Not even one night?" I asked. They looked at
each other, "Oh sure one night is fine, but the locals don’t want people living
down there." Why does everyone think we want to move here? Deb and I laughed and we
didn’t buy anything at that store. We took our bikes off the boat and went for a
ride. I thought my time with Deb would be mainly tourist spots, maybe a couple of nights
at anchor but spending most nights in marinas. Then I realized that we just went up to a
place that none of these people that live here with boats have ever been. Oh, maybe to the
mouth of the Butte Inlet to fish, but we anchored all the way up there. This was the first
night that Debbie was going to stay at a dock overnight. She amazes me. I can tell she is
really getting into this. She has become a very valuable crewmember…a great help. We
always travel well together. But I thought that since the boat was my thing that she would
kind of hang back and read most of the time. But she really took the initiative and
learned knots and helped sail. We rode our bikes on the road to Gorge Harbor where there
was a marina resort. We sat on the beach and talked. We treated ourselves to the fancy
restaurant for dinner then headed back to the boat. We were halfway done with our trip
together. It is too bad she can’t stay for longer. We are really getting into a
groove with each
other.
