Netarts Bay in December

A year ago we were having ice storms and constant clouds. This year we have cold weather but record breaking dry air and sun sun sun. Very windy in Portland. Much too windy to go kayaking (you would flip over, blow into the island, and then freeze). But it is rumored to be very nice on the coast.  Let's go there.

In California, people go "to the beach". Here in Oregon, people go "to the coast". We have some beach, mind you, but it rarely gets used for the same purposes as CA beaches. Mainly you go walking on it in your warm jackets and hold the hand of a loved one and wonder what it would be like to live in California.

Today, however, We are going Kayaking. With a group of like minded (probably not crazy) individuals from Kayak Portland. We are going to paddle Netarts Bay.

A small group of winter paddlers.

Full Dry Suit. Warm AND Cool

Netarts is off to the south of the Cape Meares Headland that juts out from the Tillamook cow flats. It is a one of the many bays in Oregon that is formed between two headlands with a river running into it. It has a large sandbar (often with trees and substantial buildup) that has formed along the barrier of the river and ocean and has a shallow bay with lots of tidal influence. Today we are going to meet our friends and launch at the public boat ramp near The Schooner restaurant. There is a $4 fee to park close to the ramp. It helps pay for the clean restrooms so I am sure in favor of that. There are only 8 of us meeting today, so it was a pretty smooth and easy launch off of the public dock.

Horses on the Beach

I don't much like dock launches. No matter how I try, I always feel awkward and silly. And I almost always almost fall in. You know, you have one leg in and your butt most of the way in and the boat starts to drift away from the dock and you try to grab it and now you are off balance and surely going to roll over, but you manage to pull the boat back in closer to the dock and you don't flip over. Then you look around to see if anyone else noticed, but they are all desperately trying to not flip over and so don't see you. Deep Sigh.


How is the weather? It is December 10th and not a cloud in the sky. We are getting a late start (around 1:00) so the sun is pretty much as high as it is going to get and shiny shiny. A little wind. Temperature probably around 55. Many people are wearing dry suits (I am) but I only have one layer of light thermal on under the drysuit (I purposely didn't wear my fleece sweater).

The water in Netarts is very clear. We can see the bottom down to 6 feet very easily. Besides the 8 of us, there are a few people out in small outboards doing the crabbing stuff. You know, power out, dump your pots. Sit for a while. Go back around. Pull up your pot. See if you have any crabs. fight off the seagulls. Put the pots back down. Repeat until you are too fracking cold.

We start with a very short paddle up the beach to "Happy Camp". Not sure what that is, but that is where we paddled. Oh, look, a couple of people out riding horses on the beach. Perhaps that is Happy Camp. The water here is very shallow. Perhaps 6 inches to a foot. It is dead low tide. We are going to wait a few, hang out and catch up with friends, and then ride the tide back up the bay.

It isn't that much of a ride. Sort of a very slow drift. But the idea is, since the tide is rising, you don't have to worry about being caught in a mud bank as the water drains away under you. Even as it was, we were often running into little dead ends where the bay had not yet risen enough to get over the mud. Sometimes we went around. Sometimes we got stuck. At least once a couple of people said, "enough of this" and got out and walked for a bit.

Halfway down the bay we steered into a little area where there were a lot of sand dollars, just sitting there 6 inches down. Many live ones, but also a number of freshly dead ones that could be brought up and studied.

Low Tide Mud Banks

At one time, Netarts was a big Oyster harvesting area. In fact, for thousands of years, the Indigenous peoples lived and fished here. But more recently (early 1900's) the harvesting technology of the Europeans (Us) got a little too good and drove the local oyster population into extinction. Now, as we know for our learnings and paddles in South Carolina, Good Healthy Oyster populations are critical to the general health of the environment. They act as filters and remove much of the "bad stuff" from the water. Without them, no such filtering. So there is an active project to reintroduce oysters (Pacific Oysters) to the bay. It just hasn't been working so well. There have been some oysters found some years, but they haven't been sticking. Unclear if it just takes time, or if the local environment has deteriorated to a point that they can no longer flourish.

Afterward, we did an easy paddle back to the dock. I elected to de-boat at the ramp this time. So much easier. And wouldn't you know it, my foot got caught on my cowling and over I went.

Yes, That is the Fantastic 4 Emergency Signal !!