Subject: Trip to Portland
Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2012 7:06 PM by Mike Gibbons
This is going out to a whole bunch of people. I can't believe I have this many friends. For those who don't know, we are moving to a new boat slip on the Multnomah channel, a part of the Columbia river and about 30 miles from Portland. The main reason is to cut off a long portion of the trip to the San Juan Islands in northern Washington. Altogether the trip was a long offshore run of about 400 miles and took over 50 hours. (This is by boat of course.) The other reason for the move is that I am tired of the rain and wind in Coos Bay. Karen is retired now so we have more time for traveling and I didn't want to spend it on a long boat trip. We want to take the boat up to the islands in the summer and return in the fall. I want to keep the boat in Oregon because I don't like the boating climate in Washington.
Speaking of which, we are in the Columbia river. I am going on 36 hours without sleep so if I sound funny it's not the drugs, really...
It was a miserable trip very appropriate for the last one. I and a friend Dave left Coos Bay yesterday morning at 8:30 planning to hit the flood tide on the Columbia when we got here. It started out good, I even took some pictures to show how smooth the seas were. Unfortunately that didn't last very long. It was not a dangerous trip and the boat never was in any kind of trouble, but it was very uncomfortable. It was the kind of trip that you couldn't stand up without holding on. That kind of voyage is very tiring. We saw a few whales on the way up but not very close and not very interesting.
I like a boring trip with no excitement, but this was monotonous and tiring. We traveled all night, Dave got introduced to the fishing fleet north of Newport. Every trip I have taking I have run into a cluster of commercial fishing boats somewhere between Newport and the ColumbiaThat part is kind of exciting, you are in the middle of about 20 fishing boat in total darkness with nothing but radar to keep track of them. The object of the game is to get through them without getting run over. So far so good. I kept telling myself the whole night that is was the last time I had to do this.
We made the Columbia at the right time, about 8:30 am at the sea buoy and got in without any trouble. Unless you count winding your way through about 500 small boats fishing for Salmon, trouble.
We are currently anchored in a small cove just past Astoria and around Tongue Point. It is very comfortable and we are the only boat here.
For the most part everything went OK. We have a new dinghy that is very heavy and it got to moving around and broke one of the steps on the transom but that can be replaced and I found out that my generator starting battery was kaput. Otherwise we are tired but fine. We will leave here tomorrow and get to our new slip by 5:00 pm. It is about 95 miles up the river.
Anyone who doesn't want occasional updates from me better let me know, i will take you off the list. NO I don't tweet or do much else so email is about it. If you think I missed anyone who would be interested in what I do, which I am sure I did, please let me know.
Mike