No sooner had Ravenna thought the word when a warm glow spread through her, making her shudder in the morning’s gale. Captain Gray, who’d soon name the Columbia River after his ship, had sent word to Vancouver that the mouth of Juan de Fuca’s Straight lay only a few miles to the north. Hearing this news, the captain gave orders to make more sail. By the next evening they’d rounded Cape Flattery, dropped anchor near the native village at Neah Bay, and come within sight of everything Ravenna knew and loved. She felt the full strength of her homesickness then. Glued to the rail the next morning, she watched as the rocky cliffs went by, the familiar foothills of the Olympic Mountains, the points and headlands she knew so well. Seeing it all again, her heart ached with memories—the countless hours she’d spent in Port Angeles working under the hulls of boats, the diving she’d done off Observatory Point, Green Point, every point between there and Port Townsend, all this came to mind when she saw it standing there in the distance—her island.
