No clouds!

I have found a walking beach. Not the best beach, not a proper beach as you would find at the ocean but nonetheless it has sand and interesting rocks and driftwood so I am happy. On the left is Port Townsend and on the right is Whidbey Island, a longish narrow piece of land roughly shaped like the outer rim of an ear but with lots of dart ins and hiding places, gunkholing spots. When I was small we would sail here each summer and explore these coves before heading into the Canadian San Juan Islands for a month or so. My father had a PC which was 32' and of very narrow beam as it was a boat used for racing but it would become our home and I loved those days and nights on the boat. My mother, bless her, never enjoyed sailing or cooking spam on a gimbaled alcohol stove. I remember well the smell of the stove warming coffee in the cold, foggy summer mornings, waves lapping against the hull as we swung gently at our mooring underneath high banks of forest reflecting quietly in the water around me. Fish would jump, herons would do a flyby low and slow, just skimming the water and I would patiently wait for toast to be born.

Those were the good old days when we used to have CLOUDS in the sky, shapes and shadows above to watch floating in wind we could not always catch down below. In the photo there is horizon haze from the forest fires in Canada which lay dead ahead out to sea a ways. This makes for spectacular sunsets that's true. But haze is not cloudage. Come back clouds. Bring your friends and rest here. We sorely miss you.