BLUES IN THE NIGHT....

2...

     When the sloop was secured to her satisfaction, Katherine went below and put a tiny kettle on the single burner in the diminutive galley. As she waited for the water to boil, she pulled a thick dog-eared ring binder out of a shelf to the left of the companionway and opened it to the last entry. This book served a dual purpose as a ship's log and personal journal. She noted her time of arrival and location of the tiny sheltered anchorage, the weather which was close to perfection for a sailor and a personal note that this seemed a great spot in which to write and create.

Katherine was just past her thirty second birthday, short of stature with what she self deprecatingly called a well-rounded figure. She had short cropped almost boyish auburn hair and blue grey eyes. When not working at her research position at a Vancouver newspaper, she was usually to be found out on her tiny sailboat or bent over a computer keyboard creating either the poetry or short stories that her abundant imagination thrived on. Now she had the best of both pursuits as she'd recently purchased a new laptop that allowed her to enjoy both leisure's at once.

When the kettle had boiled, Katherine made a large mug of steaming hot tea and taking the laptop with her, went back on deck. She made herself a comfortable workspace on the foredeck with her back leaning against a sail bag which in turn was propped against the mast. Before starting, she relaxed with the tea and surveyed her temporary neighbourhood.

The beaches were quite narrow strands, mere ribbons of sand between the water and the forest. There were a couple of other rock spurs which jutted into the channel but the one she was to the lee of seemed to be the largest and the only one which gave sufficient shelter to provide the one-craft size anchorage in which she lay. At first glance, the hillsides looked totally devoid of settlement. But when she looked more closely, she spotted at least four widely separated structures perched on the slopes and almost hidden by the forest cover.

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