Seven Weeks on the Columbia River
When we departed Portland on July 31st, our plan was to spend two weeks on the Columbia River, then another two weeks getting down to San Francisco, before heading on to Mexico. One of the many lessons of cruising is that plans will change, then change again, and again. Two weeks on the Columbia River became three, then five, and eventually nearly seven weeks before we were finally ready to head out on the ocean and make our way south.
The passing of time feels very different when traveling by boat. Because we are usually traveling at around five to six miles per hour, time as well as distance seems to pass more slowly. Small towns that would have been a quick stop in a car, become home for a few days or weeks, and the knowledge that we may not return for years makes it easy to stay another day and find new things to enjoy wherever we are.
Our first stop was St. Helens, a town we love and have sailed to many times over the years. The public docks are in the heart of the historic downtown area and just across the channel is Sand Island, a small island with docks, campsites, and sandy beaches with great views of the massive cargo vessels passing by. A shuttle boat brings people back and forth from the mainland, making it a great place for group camping trips with options to arrive by boat or by car and shuttle.
A couple of hours after leaving Portland, we discovered that our batteries were charging at 16 volts, a dangerously high rate that might have fried them. We lowered our RPMs to get down to a safe voltage and cautiously made our way to St. Helens, worried about a costly replacement of our battery bank or charging system. Once we were hooked up to shore power, we hopped in the dinghy and buzzed over to Sand Island in time to enjoy the sunset. We toasted to the first day of our journey and absorbed the ups and downs of the day: a hurried departure, final goodbyes, an unexpected equipment failure, and an amazing sunset on a sandy beach, a perfect taste of cruising-life!
We spent a week in St. Helens, working on installing solar panels and a new electric windlass and waiting for a marine electrician to come out to inspect our batteries and charging system. For such a small town, St. Helens had a lot going on. There was a concert in the park above the public dock and an outdoor movie the following night. Over the weekend there was a sand sculpture competition on Sand Island and we woke up to a steady line of people outside our boat waiting for the shuttle, which was boarding just feet from us. We spent our days working on the boat and enjoying visits from friends and family. Every evening we took the dinghy to the island to let Desi run and swim and to enjoy the sunset from the beach. When the electrician was finally able to make it out, by some miracle he found no damage to our batteries or charging system and gave us the green light to continue our journey! We departed for Kalama, Washington the next day.
It’s interesting to note how different places feel when you sail there. Kalama is a town that we have passed countless times when driving on I-5 to and from Portland and it never seemed worth a stop. Arriving by boat, however, we had our home with us and it was easy to spend several days there enjoying the town. We had the dock to ourselves most of the time, giving us extra space to work on projects, and the beach was a short walk away, where we found space between the people fishing to swim and run with Desi. We enjoyed some live music in the park, with local vendors selling their crafts, and we treated ourselves to a night out at the McMenamins restaurant on the river. After three days, we were ready to move on and sailed the ten hours downriver to Astoria.
We had planned to be in Astoria for a week or two, but as it goes, our projects took longer than anticipated. We spent a week and a half in the marina, working on the boat every day, with the exception of a lovely trip to Cannon Beach with friends and a trip into Portland to replace our dinghy and outboard motor. Once we had the windlass installed and the solar panel installation almost finished, we headed out to an anchorage, eager to escape the busy fishing traffic and swarming flies in the marina.
Being at anchor was a huge morale boost. Karl got solar up and running while I sorted, organized and stowed boxes, bags and piles of provisions, tools and spare parts. With only marshy land access around us, we took daily trips to the John Day boat ramp to give Desi a run and stretch our legs, delighting in the speed of our new dinghy with its more powerful motor. During several nights at anchor, fishing boats came to the anchorage and surrounded our boat with gill nets. There was activity around us all night as they hauled in their catch, and then by morning they had disappeared.
After almost two weeks at anchor, we left our boat in the marina for a trip back to Portland for our friend’s wedding. A friend and I spent three days baking a three-tiered wedding cake, which was quite an adventure of its own. The wedding was beautiful and a sweet final visit with Portland friends before heading south. My mom drove us back to Astoria the next day, stayed for a nice visit and took us shopping for final provisions. The previous owners of our boat took us out to a couple of nice meals, shared stories of some of their sailing adventures and gave us some gear from their sailing days. We spent a few last days in the marina, replacing the autopilot computer, completing final preparations and waiting for the right weather for the bar crossing onto the Pacific.
That is how we spent seven weeks, traveling a distance that takes two hours to drive. It was funny seeing friends at the wedding who we had last seen two months prior at our going away party, who were excited to hear about our adventures, only to tell them we were two hours outside Portland. Our accomplishments have felt significant, but not when measured by distance. We are getting all our electricity from the sun! Our new anchor, chain and windlass mean that we can sleep well at night without fear of drifting! Our new dinghy and motor make anchoring further from shore possible and enable us to get to shore faster and more comfortably in rough conditions! The repaired autopilot means we won’t be glued to the helm for exhausting long hours at sea! Each project that we complete builds our confidence to tackle more ambitious ones, and even when one takes weeks to complete, the impact to our daily lives is immeasurable. That said, after weeks of hard work, we were very ready to leave Astoria, go out on the ocean and sail to new destinations!
