from the water

Hunter Bay, Lopez Island

waterlilies, Italian Garden, Butchart Gardens

Roche Harbor buttermilk sky

Salt Spring Island sunset

Turn Point Lighthouse, Stuart Island

sketchbook: Roche Harbor

Park your boat

wherever you like

mariner chaos

then the float planes

land in a game of

Dodge Boat!

A little unnerving to see 

a Kenmore Air Otter

landing right at us -- 

light from the plane

shone in our pilot house

window. He stopped short

and turned, but only after

my husband coached, "TURN! TURN! TURN!"

Every evening in Roche Harbor, this:

Golden Hour

Golden Hour
24 x 36

In the golden hour the wind dies down, the water lies flat, and Stuart Island glows in a light bath. The crabbers, returning from their traps, pull a shadow in their wake. Trees stand as sentinels and the world feels safe. In the Golden Hour.

Roche Harbor with Angie

While we chatted over coffee aboard her boat, M/V Desert Venture, I sketched this little portrait of Angie. She and her husband, Bruce, are full-time live aboard cruisers and she keeps a wonderful blog about their adventures. You can check it out here.

We met them a couple of years ago when we were on our boat up in the Broughton Archipelago in British Columbia. Our friendship has grown as they spent two winters in Portland and Angie is the person who got help for me when I nearly died in the waters of Bremerton. Whenever I see her, I think of the line I wrote in this blog July 2009, "Angie saved my life."

It has been a special treat to spend the last week with them in the water of Roche Harbor. This morning, they pulled up their anchor and departed for points south. I will miss them. Good friends are precious, indeed.

Angie liked the little sketch I did of her, and I was happy to give it to her. Life is good. Don't ever think otherwise. I know I won't.

Roche Harbor, San Juan Island

People on San Juan Island

A musician in a bluegrass band. A girl at a coffee house. People watching and people sketching makes me happy. Roche Harbor in the sunshine. That makes me happy, too.

Back in the USA!

When the wind blows hard, it whistles past antennae, around canvas, through window screens, against rigging, and creates a weird symphony of sounds. It was to this accompaniment, I painted the water of Roche Harbor toward Speiden Channel.

I am nearly out of Wallis paper, the perfect support for a dispersion under painting with pastel on top. Lots of tooth in the paper to take as much as I could throw on it.

It is so good to be back in Washington!

Sketches