Wednesday 8/14/2012 - Neah Bay, WA to Astoria, OR
The next morning, we found that we had made good progress, and we were on schedule to make the Columbia River Bar at slack or before. There was another slack right before sunset, but we wanted to make the slack around 1300 if we could. The seas about ten miles outside the bar were quite bouncy, but the closer we got to the bar, the seas became more settled. When we crossed the bar a little before slack, the conditions were mild and the sun started to shine. We saw four Coast Guard rescue ships at the North jetty and wondered why there were so many with such benign conditions. Once closer inside the bar, we knew why. There were, what it seemed like, hundreds of fishing boats. It was the first day of Fall Chinook Salmon fishing season! We were tempted to stop and fish, but decided to press on and tie up to the transient dock at Astoria. Once tied up, we decided to postpone cleaning the boat and go have a cold beer. It was hot and we were pooped. We cleaned up a little and walked to a nearby bistro for a cold beer and something to eat. Afterwards, we returned to the boat and washed the boat and jacklines and rinsed the sails. We had a nice chat with a fisherman - the tuna run off the coast was apparently incredible. We checked the weather conditions for our trip up the Columbia the next day. The weather would be good, but the tide in the morning would be at a minus tide (again!), which would create a water level lower than our keel. We decided to leave before the low tide at 0500.
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| Entrance to Columbia River Bar |