Astoria

Oh, did you think we said Puget Sound. No, no. Puget Island. That's a common mistake.

Yesterday, we got up early (for us) and finished stowing everything for the sea, checking on engine oil and coolant, getting the charts out and organized, making sure tools we might need were at hand, having food ready in case of illness, and otherwise preparing for sea. At 9am or so, we managed to pull away from the dock while still maintaining the illusion that we're collectively able to handle the boat in close quarters, and we topped up the diesel at the fuel dock. At the crack of 9:30, we were out of the marina and preparing to cross the infamous Columbia River Bar!

The bar is notorious for changing conditions very quickly, so although the crossing was relatively easy, I still spent most of the time inordinately worried because, let's just face it, that's who I am. I gotta be me, baby.

Once over the bar, we headed out for buoy 1, which is about 6 miles offshore. For those of you who are carefully keeping up with events so far, you'll remember that the weather is not so good, but better than last week, we think. Not so good turns out to be about 20 knots of wind with gusts above 25, and lots of steep waves at maybe 8 or 10 feet, some with menacing white foam rushing down the face and pretending to be breaking.

By the time we reached buoy 1, after an hour-and-a-half really and truly at sea, most of the whooping, shouting, and laughing was replaced by grim stares, very white and unpleasant faces, and all the kids passed out. As skipper, I was continuing to navigate and monitor the safety of the ship from my new lookout position on the side deck, right next to the rail. Molly, who in the past has felt queasy when she's sitting on a rock near a pond that has ripples on it, was the only fully functional human on the ship.

"So," I said. "Do you want to take the first watch?"

"What?!" she said. "No."

"Hmm. It's been about an hour-and-a-half. Are you looking forward to 48 more hours?"

"It's up to you," she said, still feeling at peace with the world.

"Aaaaagh!" Jakie said, awaking abruptly as he was thrown from his seat onto the floor of the cockpit.

"Kids," I said, "what do you think? 48 more hours?"

The kids didn't think 48 more hours, and neither did I, and neither, really, did Molly. So, we bravely and adventurously crossed the bar again and found a new slip in Astoria. (Docking went smoothly, even with relatively high winds.)

We were greeted as we came in by a fellow adventurer whose friends had just made it to Port Angeles, having left Astoria eight days before. They spent three days holed up in Gray's Harbor on the way, apparently, and still ended up spending way, way more time at sea in nasty conditions than they had intended. He was considering modifying his vacation from the original plan: "sailing from Portland to the San Juans," to a new plan: "not doing that." I mentioned that we ourselves had made that very same decision just a few hours before.

Gracie says, "Now we know we're river rats, not ocean rats." I guess so. I think we've also learned quite a few other things. Like, what makes us happy, mostly, is hanging out with each other. And, it's nice to hang out in new places sometimes. And, it's fun and rewarding to try hard new things. And, sometimes we hate them.

Anyhoo. We're now planning to take advantage of the prevailing winds to sail up the river for the next couple of weeks (after the Beaverton Cup soccer tournament, of course). We might like Cathlamet, who can tell?