Fetch; Newport Oregon

Monday morning, after a blustery night with wind and rain, I settled down in the Stimulus café for coffee with delicious coffee cake to work on my blog. Right across the street I could see the ocean swell breaking on the beach. This town, Pacific City, apparently is a pretty good surfing spot. On my way south I drove by some awesome view spots. There are lots of little bays, estuaries and rivers to be enjoyed.

 

 

 

I was on my way to see Michael Bogoger and his wife Mary McCall in Newport. Michael runs a popular blog discussing boat projects of all kinds:

you can visit dory-man.blogspot.com . I had met him during a small boat gathering in the San Juan Islands a few years back. He since posted information of several boats I build (Sparrow and Townsend Tern). They let me put my camper with Fetch in their yard and fed me all kinds of great food.

 

 

I hung out over two days discussing all things boats among other things. One of the days we took Fetch to the Yaquina river that reaches the Pacific between the breakwaters of Newport. First I wanted to nibble at the ocean swell by motoring out between the breakwaters. We didn’t go as far as the end because the swells were breaking impressively at the mouth. After watching a fishing boat completely disappear in the wave troughs it was clear that that wasn’t a place for Fetch. We turned around, raised the sails and spend the rest of the day sailing up the river. In places the wind was very fluky and the current was against us, so we only slowly progressed upriver. Another challenge was finding deep enough water since the main channel meanders back and forth between muddy and rocky shallows. There were old pilings, oyster farms, Loons and Ospreys to be looked at. We made it about 6 miles up before we turned around and motored back. Just before the boat ramp the heavens dumped hail on us as a last treat. Arriving back home Mary had a nice dinner prepared for us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next day we drove upriver to Toledo, this time to meet another boat builder Rick Johnson and see Michaels big dory that he build years ago. Rick operates out of a big building along the river as well as out of a floating boathouse on the river. One of the projects Rick and his son Aaron are working on is a canal boat to be floating at a dock in Toledo as a holiday rental.

 

 

Michael’s dory was moored at the same dock the new community boathouse was. With lumber donated by the Indian tribes and labor donated by volunteers the Port of Toledo had build this floating shop in 2010 and are building small boats inside as community projects. Both Michael and Rick have worked on the project.

 

Michael’s dory, Mistral, is 36’ by 11’ has a wonderfully bright white interior with lots of art decorating the bulkheads. The forepeak is lit by a skylight and the head has a sit-in tub. The mast is hinged on a tabernackle and we were figuring out an arrangement to raise the mast without a crane.

 

 

 

 

Back home Michael made us delicious burgers and the dogs (Weasel and Sabu) and the cat (Pookie) got their dinner.