via Photo Challenge: Rare

Growing up, I spent a lot of time in the summer at my grandparents cabin on an island near the San Juan’s in Washington State. We would spend our days riding around the island on our bikes or playing on the mostly rocky beach hunting for agates and small rock crabs. (Going to California and seeing nothing but sand was a novelty.)

The channel between us and the next island was always running. Sometimes, between the wind and strong tides, it sounded as if a river was outside our door. But on rare occasions, the waters would be a smooth as glass. This usually happened during ebb tide, when the direction of water flow was in the middle of changing, but when I was up there this last July we had a day that when the clouds broke at 2 pm there was not a wave to be seen far into the night, even with the tide coming in. The sun shone, the slight breeze was warm and it stayed warm enough that I sat out in shorts and a tank top until almost 9 pm. That is unheard of. Usually the winds will have picked up, and being off the water, the breeze would be cool enough to at least warrant a sweatshirt. It was a beautiful evening spent with neighbors eating crab, drinking wine and enjoying conversation out on the deck with the beautiful sunset in the distance.

Have a wonderful day! 🙂

Copyright 2016 Heidi Barnes