Something wakes us early this morning—a complaining eagle or raven, surfacing whale, or just the end to rain. A whale does pass the camp while I’m drinking coffee, which I abandon to watch the big creature make two shallow dives before showing its flukes on a deeper one.

With the tide out we can walk all around this fortress like island. Under gray skies invaded by patches of blue I find a natural cave decorated by Bluebells of Scotland flowers as if it were an Irish worship grotto.  A different sort of pilgrim today I do a quick sketch and walk back to camp, passing a large round boulder along the way. As out of place as a child’s marble on the rim of flat tide land that rims the island, it could have been dropped by a giant bird or fallen out of a giant’s pocket.