{"id":2054,"date":"2012-05-07T16:59:36","date_gmt":"2012-05-07T16:59:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/?p=2054"},"modified":"2012-05-13T22:16:05","modified_gmt":"2012-05-13T22:16:05","slug":"sun-and-wind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/?p=2054","title":{"rendered":"Fetch; Sun and wind"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saturday 5 and Sunday May 6.<\/p>\n

The forecast stuck to its promise; it was sunny. I didn\u2019t have far to drive to my next destination. I was heading for Charleston, situated on the mouth of the Coos River.<\/p>\n

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Charleston<\/p><\/div>\n

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I got there early and drove around a bit to get my bearings. I had a late breakfast in \u2018Bay Be\u2019, a small outfit just starting offering food and coffee as well as day care as well as kayak tours and surfboard rentals\u2026 why not. I checked out the harbor and immediately met a bunch of husky ladies. Without asking, I made a picture of some of them:<\/p>\n

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There were some nice guys too:<\/p>\n

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There were supposed to be some nice viewing areas just out of town toward the beaches, so I headed over there. The Oregon Coast is sure very rich in state parks and Cape Arago State Park is one of those nice ones. Years back a wealthy guy Louis J. Simpson apparently made his way through the brush, reached the ocean and was very taken by the view. He asked if the owner of the land wanted to sell and paid $4000 for I believe 134 acres. He then went and build a huge house on it with formal gardens enjoying the views. Unfortunately the house was destroyed in a fire. They moved in the garden house and the family still lives there. In 1932 he gifted the land to the state to provide a public park.<\/p>\n

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The views are indeed amazing. There is an actual reef sticking out in the ocean, which is very popular with all kinds of sea life. Harbor Seals, Stellar Sea Lions, California Sea Lions, and Elephant Seals are daily guests, sometimes thousands. A guy with a telescope pointed out an Elephant Seal that was molting. They loose a few layers of skin and can be on the beach for 20 to 30 days without food.<\/p>\n

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All kinds of sea lions and seals<\/p><\/div>\n

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That night I stayed in a nice State RV Park close to Sunset Beach. After dinner I decided to take a bike ride (with my folding bike). I under estimated the distance to Charleston a bit and after going up and down hills for an hour I returned back at the camper a tad sweatier than when I left. I brought the bike for site seeing and exercise, so there you have it! That night I planned for a day on the water. The forecast was for a lot of wind and sun. High tide was around 1:30PM, so I planned to go upriver with wind and current and then back with outgoing tide. Not the big river, but a little side river south under the bridge of Charleston. I even set my alarm; by golly I was getting serious! I didn\u2019t want to miss the tide like on the Umpqua River.<\/p>\n

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Sunday morning had blue skies and a frisky breeze. After breakfast in the camper I launched at the 6-lane ramp. There were already white caps on the inlet, so I turned right under the bridge. Under jib alone I went 5 knots with a little current helping me. I saw my first Egrets on this trip. Cormorants were fishing in groups and overhead a Turkey Vulture was looking for his breakfast. The GPS chart didn\u2019t go very far into this river, which made finding my way a bit tricky. I soon started to read the river, by looking for deeper blue color of the water and keeping an eye on the waves. The shallows are browner and the waves are smaller. There are often white streaks on a windy day like this that seem to follow the deeper water, as if showing me the way. I found a wonderful lunch spot under the lee of a small island and tried to get close to the shore. After two attempts I stepped off onto the grass and ate the bag lunch I had bought at the ramp at the crab shack. I didn\u2019t see anybody except two people in a canoe.<\/p>\n

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cormorants fishing<\/p><\/div>\n

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egrets and a heron<\/p><\/div>\n

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sack lunch from crab shack<\/p><\/div>\n

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After lunch I went further upriver till I almost got stuck in the trees. Time to head back. Going back was motoring into wind and waves and I had to suit up because of the spray. My little Suzuki outboard did great, didn\u2019t miss a beat and brought me back to civilization. I kept thinking of backup plans in case the outboard quit.<\/p>\n

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In one of the side arms, just before town, a guy stood on his dock waving at me. Minutes before I noticed a boat under construction in his barn. I tied up and we had a nice wee chat in his shop. Four years ago he started building this sailboat from a page in one of Howard Chappelle\u2019s boat building books. He didn\u2019t have much to go by in terms of construction so he had to improvise a bit. He was also going to change the sail plan to a ketch or yawl to make single handling easier. He had an interesting Finnish gasoline engine that was quite small and simple. The hull was very stout with 2\u201d cross-planked bottom, with longitudinal stringers riveted to them. A large centerboard was just installed. The hull was 8.5\u2019 wide and he hoped to be able to truck it to the Puget Sound one day, but he thought he would sail this shallow draft boat mainly from his own dock. The shop had nice windows overlooking the river and Marilyn Monroe kept an eye on progress. He asked about sail makers in Port Townsend, so I recommended a few. I had to hurry out of there to avoid getting stuck in the mud at his dock for hours.<\/p>\n

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Ted<\/p><\/div>\n

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After pulling the boat out at the ramp I drove to Coos Bay to see the waterfront there and buy me dinner. Lady Washington and the Hawaiian Chieftain were tied up at the waterfront.<\/p>\n

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That night, after having to spend money on dinner, I wanted to free camp. I found a nice quite spot off some big parking lot….wrong. All night truckers started their rigs and let them idle to warm up, after which they all chose the dirt path by my camper as the best place to get on the road…. oh well.<\/p>\n

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Saturday 5 and Sunday May 6. The forecast stuck to its promise; it was sunny. I didn\u2019t have far to drive to my next destination. I was heading for Charleston, situated on the mouth of the Coos River.     I got there early and drove around a bit to get my bearings. I had…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2090,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,26],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2054"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2341,"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054\/revisions\/2341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}