| Chapter 16 -- Neah Bay to St. Helens |
| September 8, 2001: Finally home! We left Neah Bay on Wednesday, after waiting around most of the day for an engine filter to arrive from Seattle. During the wait, Alex and I went to visit the Makah museum, which is full of artifacts from the village of Ozette, which was buried in a mudslide 500 years ago. Quite interesting. Neah Bay is in the Makah Indian Reservation, and the tribe has built a very nice marina, which apparently is very full with salmon fishermen during the summer. Since we arrived the day after Labor Day, the marina was nearly deserted, except for the commercial fishing boats. We saw two other sailboats, also on their way to Portland. Tuesday evening we saw a group of young men practicing paddling in a traditional canoe. They were counting out in English, and I think they needed a lot of work to get their coordination going. Likely they were preparing for the whale hunt. The Makahs are the only group that have treaty rights enabling them to hunt whale. Needless to say that engenders a lot of mixed feelings among environmentalists and Indian rights advocates. Last year there were angry confrontations between Greenpeace activists, the Indian hunters and the Coast Guard. After the paddlers finished their practice, they tied the canoe up to the dock, and then formed a prayer circle on the dock. After that, they all climbed into a small pickup truck, sitting around the edges of the bed, holding their oars upright. The truck drove off with lots of hilarity from the paddlers. All of this happened against an orange-pink sunset, so it's quite vivid in my memory. |
| We were lucky to get very mild weather going down the coast -- 10 to 15 knots of wind from the north or northwest, pushing us southward. The bad part was the ocean swells of 4 to 6 feet, which were coming at us beam-on (directly from the side). This caused us to roll from side to side, and that went on all night. Sleeping became a somewhat difficult exercise. We are not yet equipped with lee cloths, which will hold a sleeping sailor in place on a berth. Without the lee cloths, you spend quite a bit of energy (even though you are sort of asleep) making sure you don't roll off the berth. It does not make for a terrifically restful sleep. We took three-hour shifts through the night, with several folks taking four hour shifts to make up for Allie being so seasick she couldn't participate. The toughest shift (at least for me) was the 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. shift. I could hardly keep my eyes open. Jesse joined me for the last hour, and (at my request) told me his life story. The other way to stay awake was to keep track of the spots of light which would glow on the horizon, and ultimately turn into a boat. There were quite a lot of them out there, and they all seem to be brilliantly lit up. After my 3 to 6 shift, I slept until about 11 am, but was still exhausted. Quite obviously, night passages in the ocean are a whole different set of skills and coping mechanisms, that we'll have to learn before we do it again. |
| We arrived in Astoria about 3 pm on Thursday, and pulled some salmon out of the freezer for a celebratory dinner (no one ate much of anything on the trip down the coast). Astoria has a very nice, friendly, well-maintained marina. No one was much inclined to explore, and we mostly went to bed early. Friday, we went all the way up the river to St. Helens, where Craig had arranged a berth for us for at least the next month. The river is a totally different experience. The channel isn't all that wide in some places, and we compete for space with some incredibly huge ships. The first one was HYUNDAI, closely followed by HONDA and then CIELO DI LIVORNO and VLADIVOSTOK. We enjoyed seeing all the wild country, little homes, rich peoples' homes, defunct canneries, mills, and sand beaches. The temperature got warmer and warmer, and most of us soaked up a fair bit of sunshine, reading a book, or just vegging out. At about Kalama, there was enough wind from behind to sail, and we got out the asymmetrical spinnaker for a glorious downwind end to the trip. The sail is gorgeous -- unfortunately it's too big to fit in a camera lens -- at least the cameras any of us had. Home is familiar yet not familiar. We have a different perspective on things, and I can really see myself going on a major paring-down campaign. We lived like royalty in 44 feet of boat -- what the heck do we need with the rest of this stuff? (and there is a lot of stuff). We are both healthier (we both lost a few pounds without any particular effort), and we'd like to do what we can to maintain that. Monday it's back to work for Craig, and I'll likely wait a week before going back. Too much to do! Best wishes to all, and thanks for your support during our summer journeys! Craig and Barbara |
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