August 23rd – 25th from Alma Russell anchorage Barkely Sound to our home port, tied to our house

August 23^rd – 25^th from Alma Russell anchorage Barkely Sound to our home port, tied to our house

Today is our earliest departure yet on this trip.  We awake at 0400 to enjoy a cup of coffee with Walt and Odile before we head south.  We are handed a nice loaf of Odile’s boat bread and we give them a package of our ground elk.  Gifts exchanged, engines on at 0430 and we say “until next time” as we slowly make our way out of the anchorage in the dark. 

Filleting and Fishing - What a pair!

We are definitely delighted to find no fog when day breaks over the open sea.  At the edge of Barkley Sound as we round Folger Island we begin our steady 145 degree passage towards the northern end of the “tow lane.”  The tow land will guide us all the way to the Columbia River bar and is, by written agreement between commercial traffic and crabbers, “relatively” free of crab pots.  This year we have noted numerous pots, marked them with waypoints on our GPS and will, in a quiet moment sometime, report them to whomever administers the written agreement.

At 0700 we hoist our main sail, primarily to give us a little more stability in the large swell coming from the northwest.  Since the wind comes from the south southwest it makes for a sloppy ride as it collides with the swell and the predominantly northwest current off the coast of Washington.

The weather reports seem to be somewhat of a WAG!  The predicted northwest wind does not appear until we approach the Columbia River but we are able to use our headsail to augment our motor and keep our speed up decently.

Around 0900 we are joined by a beautiful Townsend’s Warbler.  Eventually we have a six pack of them onboard and they stay with us for hours!  What fun.  They land on our heads, our hands, and all over the boat.  They find many, many gnats to fill up on.  They eventually adventure inside exploring the cabin.  One works his way into a corner under the seat where he sleeps for an hour, warmed by the engine heat coming up under the floor.  Eventually they all depart, one permanently as he had tried to harvest a moth and took too many dips into the ocean waves.  These land birds do not do well when soaked and the efforts were just too much for him.  He receives the traditional burial at sea.

At noon we see the top of a gentle giant about 50 yards off of our bow.  We come to a stop and take the boat out of gear to watch the Humpback whale.  Eventually she gives us a nice tail wave and dives out of site.  We motor onward.

Through most of the night we do our yearly dance with the Grey’s Harbour fishing fleet as they troll back and forth and all around us.  There are also a few tows and tugs along the tow lane and cargo ships further out.  At 0250 Pam has to wake Carl up to come out and lend moral support.  A tug and tow had just passed us when a huge swell combined with a big gust of wind kicked us off course with the auto pilot and headed us right for the tow.  Pam gets the boat back under control but not until we have done nearly a 360 degree spin throwing lots of, thankfully soft, items about the cabin below.  Carl takes over since his shift is to start at 0300 anyway and after working for awhile with the auto pilot and sails we are comfortable that Pam can go down and try to get some sleep. 

The rest of the morning is uneventful.  We cross the Columbia River bar a couple hours after slack before the flood tide.  We have covered 169.5 miles from Folger Island to here and put another safe nighttime passage under our belts.

We call into Customs as we approach Astoria and leave a message.  We have never actually talked to a Custom’s person when we reach Astoria.  Since it is early in the day and we have a flood tide we continue to motor upriver with our head sail out and helping push us.  We approach Cathlamet and call in about a slip.  After asking them what their depth is we decide to motor on since we would possibly be aground with the overnight minus tide.

We end up anchored behind a tiny island along the river.  Carl had placed a GPS marker here in 2013 when he saw another boat anchored here.  We name the island “Refuge” since we have taken refuge from our travels having spent 40 hours on the “road” since we turned our engines on at 0430 on the 23^rd.  We spend a short evening in the cockpit talking about how well our boat has done and thankful that we both feel that we can continue to make this trek for quite a few years to come.  We enjoy the last package of chicken that Olivia bought in Sequim.  It has been frozen as it sat under the small freezer and we had enough fish heads to use as crab bait so it makes a nice BBQ dinner for our last anchorage.

We sleep soundly and are much refreshed today.  As we make the slow motor up the Columbia for home we pass the normal variety of river traffic, from sports fishermen to tugs to cargo ships and even a cruise ship, the “Training Ship Golden Bear.”  We see the cargo ship “Lihue” towing a tug. Now that is some dinghy! 

18' Cat Boat beside us

Riding the flood current we make good time.  We photograph at least three Club boats that are in the down river race.  We imagine that their crew would like a little wind!  We are not met on the river this year by our sons and their families.  Zach and Olivia have headed east for some fishing on the John Day River and Jacob and his family had the Hood to Coast relay, with Brittney running with her team along the course from Bald Peak, Mt. Hood to Pacific City on the coast.

As we pull into our marina, the Rose City Yacht Club, the social event, Walk 4 BBQ is winding down.  We are met at our slip by helpful hands.  Steve and Doug take the bow and stern ropes and Liv adjusts a fender.  Julie greets us as well.  We tie up alongside our new neighbor boat which may just become one of my favorites in the Club, Rick’s new to him 18’ Cat Boat.

We have done 1041 miles according to the gps and put another 210 hours on the engine.  It is good to be home.