When I first met Bob he had a sailboat which he kept in Seattle. On his maiden voyage with this boat, he discovered Port Townsend, and after we were married he moved his boat there.

After I met Bob, we spent as much time as possible sailing.

This is not a story. It is just so I can post a picture of Desolation Sound.

We sailed up Toba Inlet. Ours was the only boat. We felt that we had gone back to the beginning of time.

On long summer evenings, especially in the northern part of our watery ramblings, we were serenaded by birds that could only be heard and not seen.

Cortes Island is in Desolation Sound southwest of West Redonda Island. Along its west coast is a place called Gorge Harbor. The harbor is like a very large lake with islands in it.

We tied up at the Lund dock about 9:00 o’clock one morning, having anchored nearby the night before. Someone had told us there was a 24 hour tavern there, and that it was a good place to eat.

This was where, one late summer afternoon, we chose to spend the night and sailed in on an early evening tide through its spirals and doglegs.

As we entered this cove, the other boat was already anchored and its owner was in the cockpit with his binoculars. He motioned us to tie up along side him. As we did so a raucous racket was going on…

Near its upper end is Princess Louisa Inlet, a tiny five mile long gouge in the landscape that is an eastern appendix off the main course. It is one of the world’s spectacular places.

The spring before the summer that Bob and I sailed into Princess Louisa Inlet, the government of British Colombia had changed the laws about fishing.

As we pulled up to the dock, a kilt-clad laddie (a tall, blonde young man) playing the bagpipes, came stepping out of the lodge and down to where we were.

I thought they were made by its spirit leaving its body.

I said, “ OH MY GOD! Look at those CLIFFS! Where in the world are we?” Bob said dryly, “We are coming into Vancouver.”

There are two places in the United States that I know of, OTHER THAN ISLANDS, from where you cannot get to another place in the United States, without having to go by water or go through a foreign country. One…

Having lunch sitting on the porch of this hotel was like being in a Maxfield Parrish painting: sun sparkled blue waters, deep blue sky, puffy white clouds, other islands in the distance, delicious food on the table, flowers—and humming birds,…

A Camperdown Elm is a tree that has very large leaves for an elm and has writhing, corkscrew-like branches that come clear to the ground at their outer tips like a cover-you-to-the-toes umbrella.

Every time we returned from sailing in the Canadian Islands, I would ask Bob if we could visit Buchart Gardens. He always said no.

One summer the tide and wind were just right for going around the end of Vancouver Island and into the Inner Harbor.

This is the first time we have sailed into Port Angeles. I feel very tiny. Approaching the Olympic Mountains at water level on the wind’s wobbly wings is an amazing experience.

I knew that the name “Protection Island” had been bestowed upon it by Captain Vancouver because it protected the mouth of Discovery Bay. I didn’t think it was inhabited by anything or anybody except puffins.

Jim was a retired doctor from southern California who had chosen Port Townsend as a place to build an ocean going sailboat for an around-the-world cruise. When he got it finished, he wanted to give it a try-out. He decided…