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The View from Henry Island |
Reluctantly, very, v. reluctantly, we leave Orcas Island for our intended destination to Henry Island. Sunny, 70 degrees and light winds for our cruise, another short hop of 1 hr. This is not even enough time to break out the chips and salsa.
The Seattle Yacht Club has an outstation at Henry Island and owns approximately 23 acres of the small, hilly island. There are no retail establishments, no restaurants, no Starbucks - 10 days without... but who's counting? There is no water and inadequate electricity but plenty of deer, raccoons and scenery. We tuck into our slip and spend a quiet two days. I read, accompanied to some beautiful Irish music coming from someones' boat. We have our first dinner aboard Celestine in the moonlight. Romantic, but where's my food - I must get candles.
On Sunday, we make another impetuous decision to go to Poet's Cove, on Pender Island in the Canadian Gulf Islands,a place we just heard about The trip is again short - less than 2 hours - but we have the added excitement of clearing customs. I call when we cross the boundary line as marked on the charts. An officious agent takes all the expected information and then questions me about what fruit we have on board. The answer being quite a bit. He orders us to dispose of the blueberries, cherries, apples and raspberries. The pears we can keep. I have always found the pear to be mediocre and bland but now that it is not even "ban" worthy I realize how ordinary they are. I don't want my pears, give us our blueberries!
But there is no time to beg or barter, I am being given instructions for going to the customs dock in Bedwell Harbor. We must report at 13:00 hours - "exactly." If we are going to be late, we must call by 12:59 - "exactly." If we are early, we wait. If no customs agent approaches us by 13:01 - "exactly" - we are free to leave. He does not even have us synchronize our watches. That is a 60 second margin of error. No governmental body can run with that degree of precision. Then he hangs up on me - exactly when I try to ask him a question.
We dock at customs, we wait, no agents appear, the building is locked. We trash the fruit, we leave, exactly as we were told.
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Poet's Cove with Customs Building
Once docked at Poets Cove, we are just settling in when we hear the same violin music that we heard in Henry Island. The couple on the boat next to us are on the dock serenading us with classical music. And yes, they did just come over from Henry Is. It was a beautiful evening concert dockside.
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Playing for Chips & Salsa
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Zippy & Jim enjoying the concert
We stay at Poet's Cove for 2 nights. It is a great resort, but, by foot there is nothing else accessible. It is too far to walk into the nearest town, which isn't even on this island. We do a little hiking and a lot of eating.
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