July 18 – 24

The first wave of family arrive and settle in Monday.  Barb and Craig from Roseburg and Jim from Vernonia with grandkids Aiden and Sophie in tow.  Jim stays with us on the boat and the others spread out in the condo.  

A little squid jigging is done with little success. Sophie kept one squid overnight and ”Charles” did fine right up until Carl changed the water in his bucket then he became fish food.


We toured three museums on Tuesday.  The Jefferson Museum of Art and History gave us a good overview of the history of the area with exhibits on the early settlement days from the late 1800’s

 

including good discussion on the native Klallam inhabitants, the coming of the army with Fort Worden, and the failed hopes of making Port Townsend the western terminus of a transcontinental railroad.  The museum is housed in the oldest running, still used city hall building in the States.  Council was not in session so we were able to view the beautiful 1892 architecture in the Council chambers. Aiden and Soph asie each took a turn in the basement jail cells.  Next stop was the Commanding Officer’s quarters on the Fort Worden army base, now a state park.  This 1904 home gives you a good look at how an officer and his family lived when they took command of the army stationed on this strategic point in the Puget Sound. The troop housing came along years later and is now available for rent. It looked like it would be a very interesting place spend the night.

  Our last stop was the Rothschild House, an excellent example of Victorian architecture that is prominent in the area.  The house is furnished with original furnishings and is said to be one of many haunted homes in the area.

Wednesday was a good day for a few folks to go sailing around Discovery Bay so Jim, Craig and Carl set sail.    The rest of us checked out the pool and hot tub.  Jacob and Brittney arrived with our other two grandchildren Emily and Sam. Pam took Emily, Aiden and Sophie down to paddle the kayak and the dinghy around the dock area.  It is fun to watch the kids paddle around and see how their skills have improved. More crab are harvested .  Dinner is a tasty lasagna courtesy of Barb.

Thursday all eleven of us piled into ExTerra for a full day trip to the Dungeness Spit wildlife refuge.  We obtained permission from Fish and Wildlife to land our dinghy on the beach near the lighthouse.  The other way to reach the lighthouse is walking 5 and a half miles out the spit.  This is the longest natural sand spit in the United States.  We anchor out and Carl rows three dinghy loads of us to shore. We enjoy a nice picnic and then scatter.  Some of us climb to the top of the lighthouse, others take naps and some play happily in the sand and rocks.  Sam has a new word…rock!  Since the afternoon winds are supposed to get to gale force we head back to Discovery Bay with a nice sail inside the more protected waters the bay.  More crab are harvested!  More squid are jigged!  Dinner is a crab feast with a few rock fish thrown in.  Five of us head to town for a walking tour of some of the haunted houses and Carl and Jim stay home with the kids and bravely take all four of them to the pool.

Friday we all head to the Marine Science Center, another attraction in Fort Worden state park.  The kids, young and old get to touch and feel many types of local marine life and examine microscopic life under a microscope.  Then it is off to get ice cream after another picnic in the park.  Barb and Craig head back to Portland with Aiden and Sophie.  We make them take crab.  The rest of us enjoy a nice burrito dinner from Brittney including some of the fresh vegetables from their garden.

Saturday we take Emily and Sam to the Olympic Game Farm.  This farm was used exclusively for Walt Disney studios for 28 years during which time over a hundred films were made.  The farm houses quite a variety of wildlife and takes in animals in need.  You can see everything from yaks and llamas to bear, cougar and wolves.  And do pay attention to the signs! You will definitely get slobbered on by the bison as they reach their heads and slimy tongues into you car for their next piece of whole wheat bread!  Emily goes out with Nana and Papa to do one last harvesting of crabs and delights in getting to push the small ones overboard.

Sunday we have a leisurely lunch as we pack up our suitcases.  Jim heads out to camp around the Olympic national park. We give him crab.  Jacob and Brittney take off for home with crab.  Carl and I sail to Port Townsend bay and anchor out. Carl eats crab and Pam rebels having only a glass of red wine and a nice piece of chocolate 😉. It was wonderful to have family meet us and get to spend some time on our boat.  Perhaps we can do it again in a couple years.  Everyone has made it safely home.  Jacob and Brittney report that it is much easier to whack the crab with a rolling pin than to try and crack them so perhaps I need to add a rolling pin to the galley next year.

July 13-18
Leaving Clallam Bay we head for Crescent Bay, another one mentioned in George Benson's book.  It is next to the Tongue Point Marine sanctuary and Salt Creek count park.  The park is quite busy with many people enjoying camping and beach combing.  The anchorage is picturesque but quite roly poly.  We are rocked to sleep not quite so gently this evening.

The next day high winds are predicted so we scoot to the shelter of Port Angeles boat Harbor and tie up at the dock for two nights.  Our club has reciprocal moorage here as well so not too hard on the pocket book.  It also allows us to wander around town and find a short list of items that we have written down over the past week.

For each of the two days we average about five miles of walking, a decent stretch of the legs.  We discover two new restaurants within blocks of the marina. The closest is spendy and trendy but very good for dinner, the “Jig and Lure Fish Company.” The next little café is as gem, the Empossible Eden Cafe. Excellent food, decent price, early breakfast and late lunch.  We journey on and return to the boat with most of our supplies ready to enjoy the evening.

The next day we take of for Napa auto parts, another five mile round trip.  We are boat people. Walking is a necessity.  At Napa we will purchase a new belt for our alternator. It seems to be stretching to capacity. We have a spare onboard but this way we can change the belt and we will still have a spare.  A nice surprise for Pam is that right across the street from Napa is a chiropractor that advertises Crawl Ins Welcome. I send Carl on to Napa and I crawl on in to get adjusted. The walk back to the boat is much more comfortable.

 Once back at the boat Carl spots Onnie, another boat from the Club where we live.  We go and visit with John and Marie. They stop by our boat after their supply run to Costco and we have a nice long visit as they pick our brains about how we sail the Salish Sea. They have adopted the family boat and having retired, John is recreating some of his childhood adventures he enjoyed on the boat.

The next morning Onnie departs for Ucluelet and we depart for Dungeness spit anchorage.  Winds are not conducive for a safe anchorage so we continue on to Discovery Bay and tie up at the dock at the condo where family will join us on the 18th.

Carl sets out our “alien spaceship” crab pots and we chat with many happy folks who are crabbing and fishing off the dock.  Carl finds a new fishing option and joins the nightlife happily “squid jigging” until nearly midnight. Thankfully he donated his twelve small squid to his fellow jiggers.  We spend the next day lazily checking crab pots and the hot tub at the condo awaiting arrival of our family on Monday.

July 11 – 13

Better weather today and rested bodies.  We are anchors up and leaving Neah Bay around 0900.  Just outside the bay we try our luck at bottom fishing.  The further inland we go the fewer rockfish we can keep.  Washington has severely limited the take off rockfish due to over fishing.  We poke around for four hours and are only able keep one Greenling and one Black rockfish.  We can only retain Black and Blue rockfish so we have to release one Quillback and one Copper.  We are fishing at shallow depths so we are able to release them unharmed.

While the fishing is slow we do enjoy watching a large group of kayakers as they explore the rocky shoreline.  We also enjoy watching two Grey whales, perhaps a little too close to us since they are between us and the shore, but they peacefully glide through the area surfacing every once in awhile.

Not wanting to wait for the afternoon winds to kick up we store the fishing gear and depart to the east, destination Clallam Bay and this evening's anchorage.  We have decided to explore some of the lesser used anchorages as we work out way through the Strait of Juan de Fuca.  A couple years ago Pam contacted George Benson, author of “Cruising the Northwest Coast” to see if his book was still in print.  George sent us a copy and we will enjoy exploring some of his recommended areas of “near shore cruising along the northwest coast.”

Clallam Bay indents the Straits and it's two miles long bay stretches between the tiny bergs of Clallam Bay and Sekiu.  We anchor just off of the Sekiu jetty.  Here we are in a steady stream of small fishing boats who scurry past us as they come and go, hoping to catch their share of the salmon quota.  Their wakes for the most part simply gently rock our 20,000 pound ExTerra.  Some skippers are courteous and slow down others seem to find it fun to roar in straight towards us at a fast clip and then veer off at the last second.

This morning we deploy our trusty dinghy “ET” a ten foot inflatable that we lash on deck deflated for passage up the coast and then inflate and tie on the foredeck once we are on “inside” waters.  We row ashore and have breakfast at the By the Bay Café, the only place to dine in the fishing village of Sekiu.  We like to support the small local communities we encounter along our journey and it is nice to have a break from boat galley food occasionally as well.  Stretching our legs we do a walk about from one end of the village to the other then it is back in ET (short for ExTerra's tender) and back to the boat.

We gather the fishing gear into ET and try our luck at fishing the edge of the kelp beds.  Two Greenling are all we catch before it is time to head back to the boat to get out of the weather.  The rest of the day is lazy, inside books and hot tea since outside is quite dreary and wet with heavy fog.  With only an occasional blip of cell phone coverage (courtesy of Rogers Network roaming to us from Canada)  we try to squeeze a happy birthday text message out to our oldest grandchild Aiden who turns fourteen today.  So Happy Birthday young man!! Love and hugs!!

July 8 happy birthday Carl!  Birthday cake is a yummy fresh cinnamon twist from the local bakery and birthday treat is a few smoked oysters from the fresh fish dock.  No plans today for shrimp on the barby birthday dinner because we will be on the high seas again. It will be simple stove top homemade chicken soup that can simmer in the locked pressure cooker and swing back and forth on our gimballed stove top as we sail along.

We depart Gray’s Harbor at 0940 having waited for the end of the ebb tide to cross the bar. By 11:00 we round the last channel marker and set a course to take us ten miles out, sailing along for four hours. Our goal is to get to the “tow” line, an area where crabbers agree to not put out crab pots so commercial large traffic does not need to worry about fouling a prop with heavy crab pot rope.  We keep a sharp eye out and pass many crab pots clear out to the tow line.

Power vessel “Maid Marion” from Columbia River Yacht Club hails us on the vhf radio for a real weather report. We met them on the dock last evening and swapped stories over a glass of wine in their 38’ Uniflite power boat.  We tell them the weather, wind, waves and swell and we see them depart heading south towards home.  The seas are much more comfortable today for all of us.

Around 3:00 our predicted southwest wind is not what we had hoped and we turn the motor on again so we can make Neah Bay anchorage in the daylight.  We motor on through the night on three hour shifts.  It can be quite peaceful at night, alone in the cockpit with just the light of the compass, chart plotter and radar.  The auto pilot lets you stretch your legs and step into the cabin to plot your hourly course the old fashioned way, my preferred way, on paper charts. At shift change I point out a light that has recently come onto the horizon.  We decide it is the Tatoosh light at the tip of Washington and not a distant boat bobbing up and down in the waves.

When I arise from my couple of hours sleep Carl is nearly ready to make the turn into Neah Bay.  The boat is gliding along on the Straits of Juan de Fuca swell more comfortably than it did on the open ocean.  We tie up on the end of the Makah marina dock so we can have a nice hot breakfast at the local café while we wait for the fuel dock to open.  Body and boat fueled up we anchor out in the bay.

Dinner is fresh caught Starry flounder, our first of many meals in what we call Carl's pursuit of protein.  The quiet of the bay is interrupted all day long with sound of the big ship traffic’s fog horns as they safely pass each other in the thick fog. We are happy to stay put and tackle some small boat chores and catch up on sleep.

July 6-7

We spend the first few moments that trying to track down an"unusual"noise in the engine.  Thankfully just have to tighten the alternator belt and off we go.  Astoria is our next stop to top of the tank, drop Jim off and hike around to find forgotten items like a lid for the popcorn pan. Kind of hard to make popcorn without the lid!  I had no idea there were so many stores in Astoria. Hiking is always welcome and we traipse all over. One gem is one of the largest honest to goodness variety stores I have found in decades.  Treasures are purchased and we take the trolley back to the boat so we can do last minute weather, tides and current checks.  Crossing the Columbia River bar is always daunting and planning helps take the edge off. 

We decide all systems are go for departing the next morning.  After a good night's sleep Jim heads of to the bus stop and we prepare to cast off.  Using a website that Bill O. told us about we pull up the current predictions for the bar.  Tide is one factor but today there is a very strong ebb current so we don't want arrive at the bar at the same time that current is making large angry waves. We jump the gun a bit and end up cruising back up river for awhile to let the waves die down.

Now we are good to go and with reefed main and head sails we sail across the bar and turn north.  We are able to sail until 2:00 when we decide we better motor so we can get across the Gray's Harbor bar safely as well.  It is a wet and wild ride into Gray’s Harbor as you can see from the photos.  We do a good job of stowing hard and sharp objects but our cushions and charts sure went flying about!  We tie up around 8:00 p.m. with the aid of a skipper from Vancouver to whom we hand the bow line.  Dinner is chicken quesadillas that have been warming in tin foil on top of the hot water heater for the past couple hours.  

And we are off!

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Fourth of July found us at the Clubhouse for the annual celebration of BBQ, fireworks and Wade's birthday.  102 and going strong.  Our grown sons joined us with their families and friends.  We moved ExTerra to the breakwater for front row seats for the Fort Vancouver fireworks.  Everyone settled in, some playing cards inside and some cozy under our boat blankets.  We all enjoyed Brittney and Emilie's home made chocolate chip cookies.  As the fireworks came to a close the family scattered back to their homes and we settled in to get a good night's sleep. Not!

While the city says fireworks are to stop at midnight it was well past three in the morning before we were able to get to sleep so 6:00 came early.  We cast of our lines around 6:30 with nice hot coffee to chase away the cobwebs.

On a good ebb tide we made great time.  We tied up in Rainier and the river was kind to me, letting me slowly get back into the swing of stepping off of a perfectly good boat onto some unknown dock with bow and stern lines in my hand.  Carl's brother Jim met us on the dock and we walked to town for another nice meal the local cafe.  We hailed a fellow Club member on their boat Aiya as they flew past us on their way to Astoria. They will get there will ahead of us.

We loaded back up with Jim on board and instead of heading into Longview Yacht Club we decided to try  the Columbia River yacht club out station, a small peaceful dock surrounded by water on a quiet backwater.  We have the place to ourselves. A great place to catch up on our sleep.

But first with little wind to fight with we decide to shake out the main sail and put the first reef in.  It is an exercise best done with time and patience as we only do it a couple times a year and nearly have to relearn how each time.  Now we have a reefed main that will give us peace of mind and much less sail to handle as we cross the Columbia River bar in a day or two.

Now we are settled in the cockpit for our first of many afternoons of reading. What a wonderfully peaceful spot.