Lookfar's Almost voyage
Daniel and I spent last week excitedly making plans about where we would take the boat for our first little outing with the girls. Just us. We decided we would like to try to do an overnight trip. Two possible destinations were discussed - one up on the Columbia, and another out at Tillamook bay. After talking with a co-worker who has a house out near Tillamook, it was decided to try for a smaller bay just north of Tillamook called Nehalem. We found a marina where we could put in and stay the night, so all the plans seemed to be working. Saturday am, Daniel brought the boat around to the house, and I loaded and configured while he worked on patches the scratches from our previous trip. Since I had not loaded and configured before, this was a fair amount of work, especially figuring out the two 5 gal water sacks and filling the port-a-potty, and fussing and arranging and making and packing food, drinks, clothes and whatnot. With all of this, we did not get started till almost noon, so did not get out to the coast until almost 2pm. We found Nehalem, and the little marina, and oh my goodness it was a stinky little dump. Filled with power boats (stink potters) and suspicious looking characters with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths. Yuk. So, we decided not to stay there, and continued down the road. The new plan of attack was to drive towards Tillamook, and if we did not find a nice place to stay, head home and try Rooster Rock State Park on the Columbia the next day. We made it a short ways down the road when the "Check Engine" light came on. We pulled over and discussed and opened the hood, and looked underneath, and scratched our heads, and all seemed to be fine, so we decided to risk it and continue down the road. The owners manual says this light has something to do with emissions, so well, that can't be that bad, can it??? We passed a nice looking place in Girabaldi, just on the north end of Tillamook bay, passed it, then turned around and came back since there did not seem to be much else farther down. We rented a slip for the night, rigged the boat and put in. So far, so good. Took less than hour to rig, so maybe we are getting the hang of this. By now, it is going on 6pm, and we decided not to go sailing, but just hang out and have dinner and relax. A nice evening was had by all. We popped jiffy pop - got to use the new stove - and played games and turned in early to the gentle lap of waves on the side of the boat. How nice. In the middle of the night - at 1:09 am to be exact - Daniel and I were awaken by the slapping of metal on the deck. I put my head out to investigate, and was blasted by wind and rain. The head of the mainsail had come loose from the cover, and the wind was trying to drag it in to the bay. I slid out on to the deck, and Daniel held the boom with one hand and my foot with the other, and I tucked and secured. I headed back down below, and we were both absolutely soaked to the bone. I am thinking "shoot - feels like gale force winds out there, and I sure do not feel that great being out here in that kind of storm" but did not voice any opinion except a strong desire to get warm and dry. About this time the wind is _really_ howling_ and the kids wake up and Daniel hurry’s to put life jackets on everyone, which is a wise thing to do, but really scared the bee-jeepers out of everyone! Daniel said he was concerned about the mooring lines holding, so I climbed back out and tied on an extra line on the stern and bow. The wind was blowing so hard the rain was stinging my face. I went down below hoping all would calm down and I could get warm and dry, but the crew decided to mutiny and requested to go to the car. Unable to offer any real assurance that we would be OK, and the mooring lines would hold, and a bit freaked out by the situation myself, I complied, pausing only to request that everyone put shoes on. I completely forgot I had stowed rain gear. We all were absolutely soaked to the bone when we got to the car. I told Daniel if he did not plan to go back to the boat we should find a hotel because we could not just stay in the car all night (morning?) wet and cold. We would be exhausted in the am and still have to deal with the boat. Not good. He did not want to drive around in the middle of the night looking for a hotel with the Check Engine light on, so there we sat. I found a bit of fleece I had purchased a few days before still in the shopping bag in the back of the car and covered the kids up with it. Hypothermia was setting in, so I asked Daniel if he would get the VHF off the boat and we could at least check out how long this might go on for. He straggled back out in the blower and returned with a sleeping bag (only a little wet), VHF, and my dry sack with wallet, camera and other valuables, like the keys to the boat. The WX said that a storm warning had been announced at 9:30 that night with winds gusting from 20-30 knots, decreasing by morning to 10-20 knots. Well, I sure did not want to sail in that! But knowing how these things go, I figured it might blow itself out before morning. Sure enough, around 3am, it died down. The kids were sound asleep in the backseat in the sleeping bag, and Daniel declared that he would not be able to go back to sleep, so I bailed and went back to the boat for hot tea, dry clothes and a warm sleeping bag. One of us had to get some shut-eye before morning. I dozed off, and around 4am, Gaela showed up, wet and cold as a popsicle. Same drill, warm tea, dry clothes and stuffed her in the bag next to me. We dozed off and the remainder of the crew showed up. Same drill with Sierra. Daniel stoutly refused to sleep, but did get dry clothes, and turned on the coleman heater. He says he did not sleep, but snoring sounds told otherwise. We slept until around 9am, so I guess we got a few hours. In the morning, we had hot chocolate and bagels, cleaned up some and decided to head for home. We did have a nice morning watching sea otters, Herons and pelicans. It was raining off and on, but was generally a fair day. As we headed back to the boat ramp, a fisherman just going out was having trouble with his engine and couldn’t decide if he was going to pull out or go in. Daniel tried to back off to give him room, but had a large mooring pole just aft, sort of stuck between a boat and a hard place. I saw a sandbar off the starboard side, and somewhat loudly encouraged the skipper to “give it a little umph for steering and just go around that fool”. The skipper however decided to err on the side of caution rather than ramming the dock or another boat, and opted for the sand bar instead. Sigh. We tried to push off with the boat hook, but it was just gush down there. So – on went the water shoes, and I jumped off in to a foot of water. Thank goodness we do not have a keel!!! I pushed us off, and somewhat loudly encouraged the skipper to put it in reverse. This was successful, however left me, the first mate, stranded on the sandbar. Gaela had pushed us off the mooring and had run down to catch us at the dock, and was now standing on the end of the dock, quite amused with her parents, shouting “SWIM MOM, SWIM!! Over and over again”. I failed to see the humor in this, and for only the second time in her life told her to “SHUT UP!!”. She did. Daniel worked up the courage to give it some umph and pulled up to the dock. After some finageling with getting the bow into the bow cradle of the trailer, we pulled the boat out and took down the rigging. The was done in a little over an hour, so again, I guess we are getting the hang of at least one thing. Oh – how did I get off the sandbar? I really did not want to swim in that cold murky water, and was rescued by the marina. How embarrassing. Now off for home with our check engine light on. We got about 20 miles up the road, and the car would go no further. The engine is fine, it seems the transmission has died. We are given assurances this is in NO way related to towing, however no assurances can be given that we will not have to sell one of the kids (NO WAY – NOT THE BOAT) to pay for repairs. The final event of the weekend was me slipping and falling flat on my can in the shower, after which I decided I was justified in having a small nervous breakdown while digging through the laundry pile looking for socks. Gaela was the only witness to this. Daniel says he is not discouraged, however is looking forward to us taking the boat out and having a nice boring/uneventful sail. Someday. He also agrees that learning sailing terminology might help when shouting at one another J J Just kidding – first mate and skipper are holding course just fine!
