OREGON COAST TO STARBOARD

After a fairly restful week in Brookings we motored to the town of Port Orford, 58 miles north. Conditions were fairly calm with fog limiting visibility but we did see a handful of sea lions clustered together.  They pushed themselves halfway out of the water to have a good look at us as we motored by. Curious and beautiful creatures! We made good time with a positive current helping us and arrived at Port Orford mid afternoon, though we could barely see the shoreline as we anchored.  The fog toyed with us for the rest of the day, sometimes giving us glimpses of towering rocky outcroppings along the shoreline that Oregon is known for, sometimes only allowing us to hear the waves crashing against that shoreline.

That's a huge fog  bank out beyond the fishboat.

A thick forest of evergreens lined the long gray sandy beach and we felt very much at home in the more northern elements.  A dredging company was operating machinery near a pier, working around the clock to load their barge.  Each time they finished loading they had to tow it into open water and empty the mud and sand before repeating the process again and again.  The bay at Port Orford was a quiet but rolly anchorage that reminded me of our six days rolling side to side while anchored at San Quentin just before we left Mexico in April.

we took most of Tuesday ‘off’ because we were doing another night passage which would put us into Newport, Oregon during daylight when the tide was high enough to enter the shallow harbour.
Towards noon the sun peaked out giving us a beautiful vista of the beach, Highway 101, a little town centre above the cliffs and a smattering of houses surrounding the bay.

I was reading at the settee when I thought I heard someone calling out to us.  Jim went up on deck to investigate and found a teenager with beautiful curly golden hair sitting in his kayak beside Falcon.  He had a bag of blueberries on his lap along with another ziplock carrying something else.  Jim started chatting with 17 year old Kaden, who had seen our boat the day before and, since he was curious and interested in sailing, paddled out to meet us.  Jim invited him aboard and somehow he managed to get out of his kayak and clamber onto our side deck while Falcon rocked from side to side in the ever-present swells.  This polite and curious young man presented me a bulging bag of shiny freshly picked blueberries, which I was extremely thankful for.  We have never had freshly handpicked blueberries before!  The smaller bag contained a piece of pitch wood, which he presented to us as a gift, along with a hand written letter in case we weren’t on board.  He introduced himself formally in the letter. He had obviously talked all this over with his parents as the letter gave both their names and phone numbers at the bottom. He said he hoped we could chat for a while about our cruising experiences. He explained that he taught himself to sail on a friend’s small sailboat and it had peaked his interest.  Since Port Orford had no marina he was determined to acquire sailing experience by driving to nearby towns along the coast that had marinas and sailboats. Since we were leaving mid afternoon, we could only spare a half hour but we showed him around Falcon and answered what questions we could in the short time he was on board.  We gave him our blog info and encouraged him to pursue his dreams.  After clambering back into his kayak without falling in, he waved to us with a big smile on his face as he paddled back towards shore.  We wished him much luck in following his passion.

The night passage was perfect and we arrived into Newport mid morning under cloudy skies.  Newport is a busy town, spread out for miles along Highway 101. A towering bridge joined the south beach community with the commercial marina district, shopping areas and suburbs.  Apparently it didn't make much of an impression on me as I didn't take any photos of Newport.  Sorry.

There were two or three RV parks within a mile of the marina, with RV’s wedged in next to each other like cars in a Safeway parking lot.  As the fog lifted the day warmed up to 70 F while we took a walk.  We found a marina research centre, revitalized warehouses turned into stores and the Fish Tale restaurant where Jim had fresh crab cakes for lunch.  Seems we’d found the local hangout, judging by how full the place was.  We meandered back to Falcon to rest and catch up on our sleep. I usually average a total of three hours of sleep during nigh passages but Jim seldom sleeps when he’s off watch.

As luck would have it cruising friends Fred and Linda from Perla Moon were passing through Newport at the same time as us.  We met in La Paz, Mexico last winter.  They were heading home to to California from Alaska.  Since we were both in town at the same time we met for a nice breakfast together.  Unfortunately our time together was too short because they had a full day of driving ahead of them and we had a dinghy excursion up the Yaquina River planned for ourselves.

The Yaquina River wound through Newport’s waterfront and up into the more rural areas where evergreens lined the river and house boats were scattered along the channels. We passed a huge pulp and paper mill before reaching the little town of Toledo.  We kept going for a few more minutes, exploring right to the end of the Yaquina River, sampling juicy black berries right from the dinghy!

You never know where a pedestrian crossing might be.

Since we’d arrived on the first day of their summer festival we were treated to a chalk art contest in progress all along Main Street. Kids, old and young were on their hands and knees creating wonderful pictures and sending colourful messages out to the universe.  We stopped in at very creative and eclectic store before finding a local restaurant with excellent bbq on the menu.

A waterfront park and marina are both close to Main Street.

We fell in love with this little cutie at the local Toledo dock.

Kids say the cutest things!

Railroad tracks ran right by town.

We found the funkiest store on Main Street, Toledo

Since it was an hour’s run down river to Newport we headed back to the dinghy after our late lunch where we found a cool wind and short waves against us.  Jim helmed steadily back down  river towards Newport and the warmth of Falcon.I wrapped a life jacket around my legs and made a note to myself to dress warmer next time we went on a big dinghy trip!

Once back at Falcon VII we put the dinghy in it’s davits and readied the boat for another overnight passage to Astoria, a city on the Oregon/Washington border that we visited when we left in 2013. That’s where we had a rare OOPS moment…which is explained in the next blog posting.  Until then…

Tricia and Jim Bowen
S/V Falcon VII
email: tandjbowen13@gmail.com.