Oregon Coast

We left Newport at 0600 hr on Wed Aug 27. We were approximately into about the second hour when we were wondering if we had made the right call on the weather. We decided to continue on which we were glad we had as the day only got better. It would be the first cruising day where we had no fog. We stayed offshore only about 3 miles and saw the sand dunes that are the northern coast of Oregon. Beautiful white sandy beaches.
We arrived in Coo’s Bay – Charleston at 1830 hr. When we arrived several other boaters that we had met along the way were already here.
We met a new boater on his way north. Jim has spent the last 4 years in Mexico and is now headed back to the Seattle area. He burnt us a CD with the charts we will need for Mexico and also went through our route giving us very valuable information about where to stop and what to expect.
Our trip so far has been go a day and wait several. This stop has been no exception. It looks like we could be here until Wed. Sept 03. The weather has been ugly. Very strong winds. The fish boats are all waiting to go out. Sooooo. It means we get to explore the area, which is what this trip is all about. Meeting the locals and experiencing true local life not just yachties.
The marina we are staying at is in Charleston, Oregon.
This is where people seem to do their crabbing and clamming. To anyone not familiar with Charleston it is located just south of Coos Bay. The town is one of the largest marinas located on the coast. The town is rich in history and is a very popular tourist destination. The city offers quite a number of fishing charter companies and a number of restaurants, gift shops, and processing plants for the abundant sea life which is brought into the port to be cleaned, packed, and shipped all over the country. The piers offer great crabbing using simple equipment. The docks are loaded with families in their chairs spending the day crabbing. So far I haven’t seen a crab we would keep. Very small. The sea lions like to steal the bait from the traps. I actually watched a Sea Lion jump on the dock to get at the tuna head that a person had waiting to put in his trap. They are not afraid of the humans. During low tides the area behind the Portside restaurant is perhaps one of the best places to go clamming. I don’t understand why there is no red tide warnings. There would be in Canada in all populated areas.
We decided to take a taxi to Coo’s Bay to visit the Farmers Market on the Sunday, however a gentleman by the name of Frank that we met Fri night happened by the boat and took us into town. The farmers market contained 2 tents and not much else. Like so many coastal towns or cities the hard times are noticeable. We were told that at one time there were 25 lumber mills. They are now down to 5. 30 boats a week from around the world came to pick up lumber. Now, there are about 6 a month. The fishermen are becoming an endangered species. They have closed most fishing with the exception of tuna. Halibut was open for 1 day Aug 29. They didn’t bother.
Boats are heading north out of the marina but southbound boats are still waiting out the bad weather.
We have been invited to Frank’s for a BBQ dinner this evening. His house overlooks the bay area. He was a singer in Nevada for years. His band was a back up band for such bands as The Ealges, Beach Boys and many others. They never became important but as he put it they made good money and didn’t seem to have the problems the big bands had. It is these people that we find interesting, and it is very nice that they welcome us into their homes.

Our next stop puts us in Crescent City California............

We are in no hurry...............................

An arial view of Newport Oregon


Well we did a few more firsts.
We did a 24 hr run. We crossed the Columbian Bar and we are now in Newport Oregon. It looks like we will be here for about 3 days. Another ugly storm is brewing. The one we waited out in Gray’s Harbor brought many fishing boats into the harbour.
The trip across the Columbia River was no big deal. We were out enough not to be effected by the currents.

It took us 22 hrs but I was surprise at how quick the time went. We saw a couple of humpback whales in the distance and one going the same direction as us in front of our boat. It lifted its large fluke and splashed it about 500 ft away.

We saw 3 ocean sunfish, which we have been told are rare. The ocean sunfish or Mola is the heaviest known bony fish in the world. It resembles a fish head with a tail, and its main body is flattened laterally. Sunfish can be as tall as they are long when their dorsal and ventral fins are extended. Ken thought it was a shark at first until we saw one floating right beside the boat. They are a light grey in colour.

We arrived at 0400 hr in the morning coming in the fog and dark.

Newport is a quaint City with free transportation for the tourists. We made the trip to Walmart and the grocery store and checked out the old part of town.

Newport was officially founded on July 4, 1866. Soon after, it became a popular travel destination.. Resorts soon followed, paving the way for Newport's incorporation in 1882 and establishing the community as a premier tourist destination along the Oregon Coast.Newport's subsequent development centered around three distinct areas: The Bayfront, Nye Beach and the Highway 101 Corridor. Paige and Rick took us to Nye Beach for dinner. A very beautiful beach indeed.

We plan to depart tomorrow morning and head to Coos Bay, Oregon. The other sail boat will also be heading out and I am sure we will catch up with them again.

We finally got away from La Push after spending 3 nights. This trip so far has definitely been made exceptional due to the people we have met. While in La Push the Fishing Vessel’s crew from CJ Todd gave us enough halibut for 15 complete meals. The fishing vessel Gallows sold us a tuna for $10.00. We got 15 meals of tuna. So the freezer is now full of salmon, cod, halibut, tuna, crab, oysters, and clams. I think that is enough seafood. Not to mention steak, etc…….

Arriving into Gray’s Harbor was a real taste for bar crossings. We arrived at about the right time but we had 10’ westerly swells. As we headed into the well marked (buoy) entrance using radar as we could only see approximately 100 ‘ we were getting hit the odd time on the beam. A no no for boating. I must say the skipper kept the boat heading into the waves so as to try and have the most comfortable ride possible. The boat did well and so did the crew.

The problem with timing the tides or currents correctly for one harbour is that invariably you will have to either enter or exit on a low ebb tide. Unfortunately we are currently on a spring tide (full moon) which means extreme minus tides. This morning in order to get to the infamous Columbia Bar at the right time we would have to leave at the lowest ebb tide. Why is this bad? You have a 7’ swell trying to get into a narrow, shallow entrance in the bay. You have a large amount of water from the bay ebbing (flowing out) at the same time. This takes a 7’ swell and pushes it up into a 15’ wave (not gentle swell) on the nose. Not where I want to be. The forecast is also for a very low low to begin tonight. We decided we did not want to boat to the entrance of the Columbia and be told the conditions were not right to cross. The decision was made to stay here and wait out the storm. When we can leave we will pass the Columbia bar and go onto the next bar. I CAN”T WAIT.

So …. Gray’s Harbor is a collection of 16 communities in the county including the major city centers of Hoquiam, Aberdeen, Cosmopolis and Westport. Our boat is moored in Westport.

Westport is a busy place. It is the home to the fishing fleet of this area, large charter fishing business 4 canneries and a yacht builder. The yachts built here are mega yachts. Called the Westport. It is a tourist town on the ocean with sand dunes and major surfing.

We took the bus to Aberdeen a port City. It is a town for timber and fishing and tourism. Like all the fishing and timber towns in Canada it has seen a major decline in its economy and there are many empty store fronts.

Hoquiam is the home to the Polson Museum built in 1924 and has a collection of Native American artifacts. Not Ken’s bag of tea.

Lake Quinault is a glacier carved lake surrounded by old growth trees, a rain forest. There are several hiking trails around the lake and we are considering taking this trip tomorrow. It is about 50 miles from here but for 50 cents we can get there and have a great conversation with everyone on the bus. They all know each other. It’s funny. The bus drivers yesterday gave us our own private tour. Friendly is an understatement.

There are a few native reserves with casinos around so we may check one of them out, attend a community bingo (not) or go bowling. It is life in a small town. It looks like we will be here until Fri or Sat so we may get a lot of reading done.

Puffins

Picture of James Island outside entrance to La Push

We are currently in La Push Washington. Probably one of the more interesting entrances we have had to manoeover. It is a very shallow bar and can only be entered on a slack pretty much. La Push ,Washington is home to the Quileute Tribe. According to legend, the tribe was created from wolves by a supernatural transformer. The tribe's lineage stretches back thousands of years to the Ice Age, making them possibly the oldest inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest.

The US Coast Guard has a station here so we visit it to inquire about the next few days weather report and information about the next few bar crossings. The way we read the report is that the weather is changing to a low for about 2 days and that we probably should wait it out. We will get up at 0500 hrs tomorrow and check it out. We also found out that our next bar crossing, Grays Harbor is a deep bar so there should be no problems. However one of the bars we are to cross we should ask for a coast guard assist to show us the way as it is very tricky and shallow. We will see when we get to it. I will ask if need be, no use being a foolish boater. US Coast Guard provides this service for all boaters to ensure safe crossings.

Since leaving Anacortes we moored in Port Angeles and visited the city. We stopped off at a nice Italian restaurant to have a glass of wine and notice many women and young adults wearing similar shirts. They went from one table to another introducing themselves. They were from all over the states and other parts of the world. They were taking pictures and laughing alot. Curiosity took the better of me. A simple glass of wine got us into a cult. A book reading cult. This restaurant was mentioned in this series along with many places we will be visiting. What the heck I need reading material. We bought the 4 books in the series and I will let you know if I should have had dinner instead of the books. The girls said that this series is better than Harry Potter.

We next anchored in Neah Bay. Neah Bay is located at the northwest tip of the in Olympic Peninsula , and is home to the Makah Indian Nation. Overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the town of 900 people is situated on one of the most remote and breathtaking coastlines of Washington. It is the jumping off point for boats heading south. The Makah tribe is the tribe that still lays claim to their traditional whale hunting. They created a stir by the Green Peace and Save the Whales and pretty much all who would like to see the whales. ( By the way we saw a humpback and a puffin today)

Horned Puffins are so-named for the hardened flesh that rises above the eyes in a thin vertical line toward the skull crown. Horned Puffins share very similar appearance and life-history traits with the Atlantic Puffin, however Horned Puffins have a larger bill, yellow towards the base and red towards the tip. Horned Puffins are widespread across the Pacific, breeding in summer along the coasts of Siberia and the eastern edges of the Bering Peninsula, across to southwestern Alaska and the Aleutian Archipelago. They winter at sea south of this breeding range. It took everything for them to get out of the way of the boat. They are awesome looking and have a colony on James Island heading into La Push. They fly about as well as penguins.

Until the next blog..... always thinking safety first.

Us Crossing into International Waters.




Our Last Canadian Sunset for awhile



We are officially at our first port of call in International waters as I write this blog. I will back up a few weeks however.
We arrived back in Vancouver and had the engine checked as the stuffing box was running instead of dripping. That has been fixed and the engines are purring.
Craig and his 2 kids along with his parents came aboard for a few days and much necessary electronics were completed. We now have our Single Side Band Radio getting the weather faxes for us. Our sailmail works so we can keep in touch with the kids regardless where we are and if we have email service. Our AIS is up and working and is a marvelous edition. It allows us to know where all ships are, who they are, what they are , if they are on a collision course, quite cool. Our GPS (5) are all connected to the emergency distress signal should something happen to us, and our radar overlay should be done today. This has been a straight uphill learning curve.
We spent our final night in Canada at Sidney Spit. We witness a beautiful sunset and a terrific sunrise.
At 1045 hrs on Aug 04 2008 we entered International waters for our long voyage. Our first Port of Call is Anacortes in the San Juan Islands, Washington. Customs was a breeze. They spent about 10 minutes on the boat and about 20 minutes with Ken looking over documentation. We have everything neatly compiled in a book to speed the process up. The custom officers were impressed. We had been told we could not bring in beef or chicken so we made sure we had none only to be told it was ok to bring them in now. However we couldn't bring in goat. No problem there, I have no goat.
We are here for 1 week so we can have the life raft re-certified, reprovison, see relatives. Steve and Jane Savidant former boating students of ours from Calgary so graciously loaned us their life raft for the duration of our trip however long it takes us. We took the life raft into the company yesterday and they gave us a demonstration on inflating it. We were given a first glance view of what we would be living in should we need to use it. The raft is a 8 man raft so is a decent size it has many rations of food and all necessary survival equipment built in. I hope to never see it inflated again but it was nice to see what it should look like if we need it. Our EPIRB is working and will be put along side the life raft. We have prepared for the worse and expect the best.
Well this is a very quick overview of 2 weeks but now you are up to speed.
The next blog should be from the West Coast of Washington until then………