Camping on the Columbia: Part II

Camping on the Columbia: Part II

Boy, it is early Sunday morning right now and the wind is really howling here. Hope it settles down. Don't really want to be on the river in a big wind. I guess we can always cancel the camping trip if the weather is too strange from the get go. I can remember one of the main things that was important to learn about doing SCUBA trips. No matter where you go or how much effort you spend getting ready for a dive, if the weather looks bad, cancel. Too difficult to recover from dead. And the resultant newspaper articles will make you look like an idiot.

Nothing to do but to hunker down.

At this point I think I should relate to you the plan.

1. Meet at Scappoose Bay Kayak at 11:00am
2. Transfer my boat to the alternate Action Adventure Mobile.
3. Drive to a state park on Sauvie Island
4. Leave Car, Be packed and on the water at 1:00pm
5. Paddle downstream to Coon Island. Arrive by 5:00 pm
6. Camp overnight.
7. Perhaps drink a beer
8. Paddle more downstream to Scappoose Bay.
9. Get car 1
10. Drive to car 2
11. Go home.

It would look something like this:

View Multnomah Channel Plan in a larger map

Now let's see what happens when reality meets plan.

I am so glad I got that new Tempest 170 at the swap meet. It seems like whenever you are packing for a trip there are always a couple more things that you just REALLY NEED to bring. Like another bag of bagels. And the stick stove. And ….... DAMMIT, I forgot my folding saw. The weather did mitigate somewhat. We had some wind on Sunday morning but everything was looking pretty doable as I drove up Highway 30 toward Scappoose Bay. Ran through one pretty intense rain shower, but what the hell, this is Oregon.

I arrived at the Scappoose Bay parking lot a little early so I parked in front of the kayak shop there and went in to look around. They have a Fathom hanging on the wall. Very pretty. But I have my new tempest so I am only slightly tempted. The guys there asked where we were going and I explained about “the plan”. They told me that Coon Island was a great place to camp. Well, except for the mosquitos. I bought some bug repellant. Of course, the mosquitos probably wouldn't be that bad this early in the season when the river is up. During the summer the center of the island is a nice meadow (good thing because that is where we are going to pitch our tents) but this time of year that meadow is a pond. (Ok, not going to pitch our tents). But there are designated campsites all around the edge of the island with benches and fire rings and such. OK, that works. Hopefully we won't need to do the pitch the hammocks in the trees to be dry thing, (Dammit, I forgot my Hammock).

Chip arrived and we loaded up his truck and took off for the put in sight. This is where we started to have some problems.

Sauvie Island is said to be an island in the Columbia river, but when I look at a map it appears to be more proper to term it as a an island between the Columbia and the Willamette rivers. I say this because the Multnomah Channel has all of it's water coming from the Willamette. But even given that, it is the largest island in the Columbia and one of the largest river islands in the entire United States (that is to say, it is bigger than Manhattan). It is a largely agricultural and wildlife preserve type setup with only about 1000 year round residents. Cyclists and kayakers like to go there (presumably for different reasons) and in the fall it is a great place for pick your own corn and pumpkins. Sauvie was first documented in 1792 by a British Lieutenant who named the downriver tip “Warrior Rock” after he was greeted there by a group of armed Multnomah Indians. That rock is still there (mostly) and is still called Warrior. We have kayaked there before. It was from the other end of Sauvie that this same Leautenant got the first white invaders glimpse of Wy'East and promptly named it Mt. Hood, after one of his Admirals (presumably in consideration of advancement). Notice how I haven't named this guy? Hey, he was just the lieutenant, there are lots of crew members I am not naming.

The next contact we have is when Lewis and Clark came rolling through. They named the island Wapato, after a local potato like plant that was a main foodstock of the indigenous population. And while they were there, they evidently gave their most popular and abiding gift to the locals who immediately started dying out from syphilis, measles, and smallpox. So much so that in in 1832 the tribes were so eradicated that the Hudson Bay company removed the survivors and burned the villages to prevent spread of contagion. That contagion is described as “ague” and was presumably some flu.

Then came the Oregon Trail and more settlers and eventually.... pumpkins.

Oh, and Day Use Only parks.

And that was our problem. We found the put in place easy enough, but there wasn't anywhere around it that we could park overnight. Everything had these “day use only” tags on it. We went back to the little grocery store right by the only bridge onto the island and asked the guy there about parking. Interesting that at the only store on a little American island like this you would find a guy who didn't speak english very well. Actually I suspect he spoke just fine and was playing with me on account of the Leautenant and the smallpox, but I could be mistaken. Anyway, he said we could park anyplace we wanted as long as we had a parking pass. OK. So we asked for an overnight parking pass. “Oh.... no. No overnight. Only Day.” Dammit. Evidently you can only park overnight on private property. We would need to have a “friend”.

So we left Sauvie and tried Rocky Point marina. Same deal. No public parking. Need a “Friend”.

Dammit.

We went back to Scappoose. We knew we could park there. The problem was that it is was now 1:00 and it would be 2:00 by the time we got into the water and Coon island is now both Upstream and Upwind.

Dammit.

Well, let's get going. I have never packed a kayak for camping before. There was a class in how to do it last week at the swap meet but I only heard that part that said “Any Questions?”.

I looked it up on the internet but that was full of useful advice like “Pack Carefully”.

The rules as far as I can discern them are:

1. Assume everything will get wet that isn't in a good dry bag.
2. Put heavy stuff in the center of the boat.
   1. This essentially means to put water right behind your seat.
   2. Perhaps your stove and pots and pans go in the rear compartment as close to you as possible.
3. Stuff light stuff (clothes, sleeping bag, tent) up into the narrow tips of the bow and stern.
   1. This turns out to be easy to do but hard to undo. You can stuff things up there by pushing on them with the next dry bag in line. But how to you get them out? Hell, you can't even see up there to tell if there is anything there unless you take a picture with your camera.
   2. This is where the advice to “attach a string with a whiffle ball at one end to your bags” must come in handy.
4. A LOT of stuff can go in at this point.
5. You will always forget to put something in and have to start over.

The Day Hatch on the Tempest came in really handy here. It is right behind you on the right and is meant to be a waterproof chamber that you can access without getting out of your boat. So you put things like a first-aid kit, binnoculars, rain jacket, snack. Things like that. It is a pretty big chamber though. This is because, even though short, it is a cross section of the largest part of the boat. So I put all of the heavy personal stuff there. Repair Kit. Stove. All of my little bags of personal items. (lead handle tooth brush). I like the Day Hatch. But I have not yet been able to access it whilst boating without the fear of flipping my ass over. Perhaps with practice.

We finally climbed into our laden boats and headed out on the water. Here was my first test of driving one of these things whilst full of gear. (Hey..... 2 uses of whilst in the same blog !! (3!!)). Not sure what I was expecting. Perhaps a bit more tippy. But stability wasn't an issue. Definitely felt harder to push through the water, but the Tempest feels harder to push than Journey anyway. So it wasn't that big a deal. I guess this is why people like kayak camping. So much easier to move stuff around once you get going. Of course, it is a bitch to get it on and off the water.

 

We got out to the mouth of the bay and now had to decide where we were going. Do we paddle our (newly revised) plan and head up-current and up (growing) wind and up (it turns out) tide toward Coon Island? Or do we change directions and head out on the Columbia to Sand Island over by the little town of St. Helens?

If they are equidistant, we are doing Coon. But I pulled out my iphone and had a look and Coon was like 3X further. And it was already 3:00 and we were already hungry. We ate our Subway sandwiches and headed toward Sand. On the way the clouds darkened up and Chip finally put on his full emersion gear. Just in time too, cause as we crossed the confluence of the Multnomah and Columbia to Sand Island, the skies opened up and it just poured on us.

Had us Some Rain

And then Sun

Getting rained on when you are in full emersion gear isn't any big deal. Your hair might get wet but everything else is going to stay dry. And really hard rain flattens the waves and makes really neat little explosions of water drops across the river. I pulled out my waterproof and tried for some pictures. They can't show the glorious impact of if though. So, not adding up to 1000 words.

Chip has camped on Sand Island before a few months ago and he pointed out the tree he slept under. He said that was an OK spot, but it didn't have a fire ring or a table. He wanted to check out the main part of the island. So we slotted into the current and headed up the South side of the island. This is when I realized the current was Really chugging along. I mean, a few knots. Not faster than you can kayak, but definitely faster than I have seen the Columbia move. And we were headed for the large (and empty) docks on the island. Just before we got to the docks I realized that there was a set of floating log barriers. Big Log Barriers. Now that I think about it, these barriers are at all places in the river where there are floating docks or neighborhoods. It is clear that their job is to stop oncoming debris (like Trees) from coming in and taking out the expensive part of the structure. But they also look like they could do a pretty good job on an unwary kayaker. I mean, here you are, floating toward a 3 foot diameter string of logs that the current has jammed up tight against a set of upright pilings. The river is piling up against the logs before forcing its way under them. You realize that if you are swept into the barrier you will be pushed broadside and then have 1 of a few things happen:

1. You will sit there is a silly fashion until you can work your way around the barrier.
2. You will be flipped over and drug from your boat and pulled under and pop up on the other side.
3. You will be caught in a circular eddy that will flip you round and round and round until you have the wherewithal to extricate yourself from the boat, at which time you can use the boat to force yourself up and onto the floating log. Here you will find the slippery round purchase of the log untenable and after a few moments of scrambling your legs will be forced downstream under the logs and you will be once again spin around until you are carried below the logs and into a morass of old trees and debris where you will be trapped until Search and Rescue finds you when the river level goes down in the summer.

I preferred to use the “paddle like hell to get around the death trap” method. Chip followed me though with a laughing attitude that implied he had not read possibility (3) above.  Funny, I have no pictures of that.

Tempest on the beach.

We beached in some muddy sand (perhaps it was sandy mud) and walked up onto the island. Sand Island is part city park (for St. Helens) and part State park (via the Oregon Maritime Association). It has an interesting mix of hopes, dreams, and reality mixing together. The hopes and dreams are realized by the extrememely nice and expensive set of docks on the Oregon facing side. Room for hundreds of small craft. I understand that during the summer the town of St. Helens operates a little ferry so that anyone can go over to the park and laze in the sun and swim or have a picnic. There is also a picnic shelter, a bunch of randomly placed benches and picnic tables and fire pits, and 3 high tech advanced solar powered composting toilets. Well, I am sure they were high tech advanced solar power composting toilets when they were built, 10 years ago. Unfortunately, they built them out of wood, which doesn't do so well on a flooding island in a rain forest. Now they are mainly composting themselves. Still usable, but under hearty disrepair. And thus we find the reality part of the mix. Decomposing toilets, invasion of the island by blackberry and some kind of bamboo, and a lot of Budweiser cans curtesy of the local highschool seniors with small boats escaping to the island for a night of beer with their football buddies because all of the senior girls are dating lumberjacks and U of O seniors. Damn Them.

After some inspection of the island, we decided to paddle around to the Columbia side and beach and camp there. Now, that side has a steep bank of 7-10 feet, so this involved pulling up on the rapidly shrinking beach (it turns out the tide is coming IN), pulling out our gear and tossing it one bag at a time to the top of the embankment, I person climbing up the sand and then working together to push, pull the kayaks up on the top.

Climb up That, it is always harder than the pictures make it look

Camp Here

But once up there we had a nice flat sandy (good drainage cause it is gonna rain soon) camping area AND a picnic table. Unclear if the picnic table was worth pushing those damn kayaks up that fraking embankment. Actually, the worst thing about the embankment was that the river was only 20 feet away, but we couldn't get to it to wash our hands or such unless we walk several hundred yards down the beach. This was because scrambling back up the cliff would certainly involve getting your hands (and such) dirty and sandy again.

First thing is first. Set up tents.

Chip and I had a collision of one man tent technologies.

First up: (The Chip Tent)

Elite from Nemo

This thing is really a bivvy sack with an inflatable collar that holds up the “crawl in” end. It does boast strongly for the lightest and smallest tent available (there is a picture of it jammed into a liter water bottle) and it does set up pretty quickly. It also looks hilarious when the owner is down on his hands and knees blowing the sucker up. It is sort of breath assist. You blow into a tube that inflates a small bladder with a one-way valve, and then you hand squeeze the bladder to blow the higher pressure air into the bicycle tube like semi-circular tent pole. I am pretty sure a video would not be allowed on you-tube.

The unknowing review that Chip gave during the evening was. “Damn, how do you? Where do your? I can't get into this... ouch. Damn. Oh. OK, I got it. Well. “

And then in the morning, “Hey, where did all of this condensation come from?”

Second up: (The Jon Tent)

Skyscape Scout from Six Moon Designs

Six Moon Designs turns out to be a local shop (Beverton OR) so I am consuming locally. One of the things that attracted me to this nifty little one man tent was that it is designed to use your trecking poles as the main support structure. You peg out the 2 bottom corners and the top one corner and then crawl inside and extend your poles into the roof. Comes with a little cross piece that goes in the central roof beam that has safety slots where the pointy ends of the trekking poles go. You then guy out a few other places to set up your entrance and there you go. Enough room in the center to sit up and room in the alcove where you could run a little propane boiler if you had to. There is also quite a bit of room on the floor above your head to put your gear and such. The design also has an integrated net design that allows you to roll up the sidewalls and provides good ventilation at all times to minimize condensation.

This tent is heavier and larger than the Elite but it does come in (more expensive) lighter materials that make it competitive in the weight category as well. The Scout version (that I have) is made of common inexpensive (though still rugged) materials and is cheap enough for boy scouts to own it (thus the name).

My unknowing review (according to Chip) was very loud snoring.

I recommend you get at least one of each and try them out for yourself. Though I can't use the Elite because I am betting I couldn't get into it without sitting in the mud and extending my legs.

Once the tents were set up I pulled out my large sil tarp and we used our paddles and good boy scout knots to set up a fly over the picnic table. Cause it is GONNA RAIN. The sand was just too... well.... sandy, to get the tent pins I had to stay in. Chip showed me this trick that you use when you are setting up a tent or shelter in snow called “Dead Manning”. You dig a narrow (3 inches) long and deep (12 inches) hole that looks sort of like a grave and you bury a stick just like a body but you put your tent rope around it first. Pack the sand down tight and exert the pressure from the side and now you have a good secure position for you nice tight shelter. I also used the kayaks to hold down two of the corners just cause they were there and I thought it would make for good photography (oh, and I hadn't learned about the dead man yet).

That is a might fine shelter

Dinner Time.

For dinner I had planned that we would do some aluminum foil cooking. This is another classic boy scout trick. You take a big sheet of aluminum foil, cut up some potato slices and carrot slices. Perhaps an onion. Add a hamburger patty. Wrap the whole thing up and bury it in the coals of your fire for an hour. Of course, for this to work, you need a fire. With Coals. For that, we were going to need some fire wood.

Guess the Joke I just told

There really wasn't much fire wood to be seen in the area. In the little forest on the island everything was very wet and rotten. Not much good for burning. What I had been counting on was some good drift wood on the bank of the river. When we stopped out near Ridgefield the other day the beach was just covered with good firewood. But I think that the wood condition is very much dependent on the river topology in that area. Over by Ridgefield the currents were making the wood collect. Here on the embankment, all of the drift had been swept away. So. We took my little backpack and we walked down the beach gathering all of the twigs and sticks we could find. There was one place closer to the South end of the island (I think this thing runs North-South) where there was a least a slight larger collection. And then we found some pretty good long pieces and DAMMIT, I still forgot my collapsable saw. If we had brought that saw we would have had more firewood than we would have know what to do with. As it was, we had a pack full. I got the fire lit, prepared the hobo dinners, knocked down the coals and threw in the packages. Then I walked down the beach and called my Partner on the cell phone.

I admit to being a little concerned about dinner. I had put the little bit of remaining firewood on top of the foil packs, but there really wasn't the size of fire I would have liked. I ended up taking a long walk down the beach and when I got back the fire was pretty much burned out. I fished out the foil packs and let them cool in the sand. I wondered if we were going to be able to eat them. They felt very.... light. Perhaps I had completely desiccated them. But no, they were fine. We opened them up and hand a grand old dinner. Chip even made CoosCoos.

AH, dinner fit for kings !!! Kings I tell you !!

After dinner I got out my Solo stick stove. You ever use one of these things? I think I have blogged about them a couple of times. In their pure essense, they are a couple of small paint cans stuck together, but I bought mine from Amazon. You need a few handfuls of finger sized sticks and you can make a little fire that burns hot and you can boil water in 10 minutes or so. The only problem is that the sticks burn pretty fast and you have to keep stuffing them into the little opening on the side. I have seen some other stick stoves on the market that seem to be lighter and cheaper and fold flat. Hmmm. May have to try one of those guys out. But tonight, we had tea. We had hot tea and sat in little fold up chairs in the sand and watched the last of our wood burn down.

Then we climbed into our respective one man tents and listened to the cargo carriers going by on the mighty Columbia.

During the night I was awakened twice. The first time was by a container ship lit up so bright that it lit the beach as bright as dusk. Wow. What was up with that? We saw other ships going by without anything more than running lights and wondered how they navigated. This one was a blazing torch on the ocean. The other time I was awakened by a loud crashing as something that had snuck by in the dark cast a huge wake wave onto the sand embankment. Wooooosh – Crash – Booom in the night. What kind of ship makes that kind of wave? Perhaps a dinosaur.

So you ever wonder what kind of traffic is using the Columbia? From where most people live in Portland, the Columbia and it's large river traffic is not visible. So I bet there is a bunch of stuff of which most are unaware. We saw some barges going up river (and then, later, back down). That is the common traffic that people see because that is the shallow water traffic that goes all of the way up to the Bonneville Dam and through the locks and up to the inland parts of Oregon and Washington. They are usually carrying grain, wood pulp, and wheat. Where do they ship out of? Much of the traffic is going from the Port of Portland to upland destinations like Pasco and Lewiston (Idaho). But what is being shipped on this stretch of river, the 100 miles from the ocean to Portland?

I did some research. Seems there are a lot of barges that just go back and forth between Portland and Longview. Some ships loading and unloading in Longview. Want to see what ships are out there right now? Take a look here: See where they are.

The biggest news I saw was the story about trying to ship coal out of St. Helens. That is the little town right across the water from where we were camping. A company wants to ship 2500 coal barges a year into St. Helens and then load the coal onto big ships and so to China.

So. Boats going by.

And then it rained. It rained pretty hard a couple of times, but I was warm and dry in my little tent. Presumably Chip also survived.

The next morning we rolled out of bed to a partially sunny sky. Some nice clouds. And we still had a high tide. 

For Breakfast, Chip made his specialty, Hard Boiled Eggs. Don't laugh. Chip has one of those miracle instant boil hiking cooking devices (jet boil). He can boil water 100 times faster than I can using my stick stove.  It also comes with a frying pan attachment, but when you are in a hurry and don't really want to do an extended morning KP, then being able to Jet Boil some eggs is pretty nice. I believe that he puts the 6 eggs into the boiler, fills with water, Bring the things to a boil in like 60 seconds and then just let it sit for 10 minutes. Serve up some bagels and have a breakfast fit for kings.

A noise on the river. A very loud boat throwing up a HUGE rooster tail behind it. This boat was very strange looking. It reminded me of the Japanese Whale "Scientific" boats. The black sleek ones that are the deadly hunter killers that go along with the whale gathering mother boats and slaughter whales for scientific purposes. (oh, I almost said Scientific Porpoises. I am such a card)

What is this thing?

This threw a bigger wake, with bigger waves on shore, than the barges

 So we packed up our gear and did a short portage over to the docks (thank God Chip had his kayak wheels). It only took a couple of trips. The Tempest 170's that we are using are only like 10 or 20 pounds heavier than my Journey, but you can really feel that difference when you are slugging overland with a load of gear.

On the Dock side (the south?) of the island we decided that it would be easier to load the boats and launch from the bank, so we did that. This was mainly because the current was still zooming by out there in the river.

Kayakman

I mean, the current was really strong at the crossing from the island to the Oregon mainland. We had a pretty hard first hour until we got back into the Multnomah Channel again. We did have a healthy hard paddle along the pleasure boating docks of St. Helens. A few people stopped to watch us paddle like hell and hardly move and comment on how pretty our boats were.

This is Osprey season. Lots of pairs of the birds raising babies and yelling at hapless kayakers that happen to be wandering by. Where did Osprey build their nets before people started placing pilings for them? You never see Osprey nests in a tree or a cliff or whatever.

And so we quickly wound our way back to the docks at Scappoose, where our cars were waiting.  What fun. I do have to evaluate this entire idea of taking wheels with you when you go kayak camping. It seems like such a strange thing to do..... and yet........

No Fish Glory

So, dear reader. Yes, I am talking to you.

This was a long post. More of a story. More research. Took me a couple of weeks of free time to write. Which is better? Long posts like this, or short, to the point things. What are you looking for? Make your voice heard, leave a comment.

Cheers,

jon

Camping on the Columbia: Part I

Camping on the Columbia: Part I

This is a rather long blog entry, so on the behest of my editor I am putting it out in installments. Links at the end of each one to lead to the next part.

Enjoy

I am getting ready to go on my first kayak camping trip and I am thinking that my Journey is just too damn small to be carrying gear. I mean, I like the boat. It goes fast. It is light and easy to top on the car and such. But I feel so low in the water when I am paddling. Really low. So low I feel like if I add another 50 pounds of gear (and water) that I might be more like a submarine.

Some of the guys out out on the Bachelor Island paddle this weekend agreed with me. But they also pointed out that submersibles don't have to worry about the weather. (remind me to write up the Bachelor Island Paddle)

The other thing that was this weekend was the Alder Creek Spring Paddle Fest. My partner and I headed over there to check out some kayaks. Cause. You know..... I might want a bigger boat to go camping. My partner was actually more interested in a play boat. Something for the surf. (you know, for doing this). I also would like a shorter boat for playing in the surf. We are rapidly running out of room in our garage, however, even with the boats being slung from the ceiling.

Knock the sand off your feet.

There were 3 interesting boat vendors there. We looked at Current Designs a few weeks ago and were underwhelmed. My partner suggested that I look at TideRace and Valley. We hit the Valley guy first. I asked him for a boat for going camping and fitting my 220 pound manly frame. He had me try out the fit of an Etain he had sitting in the sand.

“But knock the sand off your feet first. It is really hard to get the sand out of the boat”.

Geeze fella. It is 11:00 in the morning during an event that is running for 2 days and you have your boat sitting in the sand on the beach for people to try out and you are worried about it getting “sandy”. You have a problem. That and I didn't fit. I guess Valley boat designers don't understand the entire nature of a manly sized man. With girth sufficient to lift manly burdens and do laundry and such.

“It is too small”.

“Oh, the hip pads come out. Now try it”.

I got back in, “It is still to small. You got anything bigger? I also would like a larger entry. How long is this cockpit?”

“I don't know. It is the standard size.”

“The standard size? You telling me I won't fit in any kayak what so ever?”

My partner chimes in, “The sizes are listed on your website. I was just reading them on the way over here”.

“Oh, I don't read those things. I don't like to know the measurements. Just another thing to get wrong.”

We left. My partner thinks that the Aquanaut is a bigger boat for me but the no-sand-no-meaurement sales guy said they were discontinued.

Turns out the Eddyline guy was much nicer. They had boats down on the water and quickly pointed me to the 2 boats “larger than a Journey that would fit my butt”. They were very frank and friendly about it. So let me tell you what they got:

Fathom

Fathom:

I liked the Fathom. The feel of the seat and entry was pretty much like Journey (4 inches shorter on the keyhole entry. A little hard on my poor old knees but I could get in and out). The boat is a foot longer with a day hatch (a waterproof compartment that you can reach into behind you without having to get out of the boat). Fathom is also more narrow than Journey with more wobble. Wobble can be good, by the way, it makes the boat more reponsive and fun. The main thing that the salesguy was saying about the Fathom was that it was FAST. I agree with that. It felt really light and fast on the water. Very fun to paddle. I was a little concerned about the smaller cockpit and getting out of the boat and all so I put on my dry suit, got a safety spot from my partner (in the Low Volume Fathom) and did a roll and wet exit. No sweat. Didn't even piss off the salesguy. Quick note on the Fathom LV. Too small for me. My partner didn't really fit into it either.

Denali:

The salesman wanted me to try Denali. He said they built it just for me. It is a BIG boat with a BIG cockpit. It was easy to get into. I had trouble finding the foot pegs at first. The guy that had been in the boat before me had evidently been 7 foot tall. “He was the other guy we built that boat for”. I like the Eddyline guy. This boat was just too big for me. It is the sort of boat that I would recommend for any of my 250-300 pound friends, however. And it was a very nicely built boat. My problem with it was that I just couldn't get my knees to connect with the knee pads unless I bent my legs a lot more than I wanted. So, just a big nice boat. Large tall persons... have a look.

Next we went walking back down the beach because my partner really wanted to try out one of the surf and play boats that the Valley guy had. We figured we could sneak out in it before he saw us. We lucked out, they had a different guy there. He hooked us up with a cool one piece wooden paddle (Can you say Expensive?) and sent us out in a grey Gemini SP (sports play)(not small person). This is a shorter maneuverable boat. Sort of heavy, though, as it is made to bounce off the rocks in the surf and such. My partner really liked it. Have to figure out where to hang another boat in the garage.

Some people make any boat look good. 

Oh. And then, of course, you have the kicker to all of the this. The cost. These are all $2700 to $4k boats. So best pray for a big tax refund.

I had this great brainstorm idea for my up comping kayak camping trip (which was how we started this little story, as you may recall). I will rent a Fathom from a local shop for the trip. If I really like it, I will trade in Journey and get one. What a great idea. Too bad I can't find anyone that has a nice boat like that in their rental fleet. Bummer. Wait..... Scappoose Bay has the entire Eddyline line in their rental fleet. Now we are talking. I will give them a call tomorrow. (Which is going to seem like right now to you, my loyal reader, because I am writing this over a multi-day period. Isn't that special?!

The good news is that they have one. The bad news is that they don't rent for over night adventures. Losers.

I have been packing all of my stuff into waterproof dry bags and laying them down along side my Journey and wondering if things are going to Fit and Float. That is what I need. For everything to fit and float. According to the Eddyline website I should be fine. The boat has a carrying capacity of 375 pounds. I weigh 220. Camping gear must be under 50. perhaps 10 pounds of water and food. That adds up to under 300. So I should be above water by 75 pounds. Hmmm.

So I packed up my Journey and all of my gear and headed out to the Kayak Portland annual swap meet. I had signed up to be a safety boat to keep people from drowning while they are testing new boats. When I got to Willamette Park (the one in West Linn, not the one in Portland) at 9:30 the parking lot was already filled! I thought, “Wow, I guess all 125 people that RSVP'd for this event are already here”. But it turned out that there was some kind of girl's softball thing going on and that was taking up all of the parking. Did find a place in overflow and walked over to the event. I took this little muddy trail that winds along the river from the main boat ramp to the park. When I emerged from the underbrush I was looking at the row of kayaks that people had placed in the grass for sale. And one kayak just jumped out at me, it was a beautiful blue Tempest 170. Just like my partner's only a different shade!! I love these boats. And here is one for sale. And it looks just like my Other Kayak Friend's Tempest. Hey, there is my Other Kayak Friend. What a coincidence.

Hmmm, Nice Boat for Sale.

A handmade Wood SUP vendor

Other Kayaks for Sale

Nice little trailer..... 

It turned out that the OKF and her hubby were at the event selling her Tempest so that they could afford to get a Cetus (insert link here) that they had their eyes on over at Alder Creek Kayak. They have had matching Tempests for awhile but she can't quite keep up with him and wanted a faster boat. I think in this context faster implies a better speed to effort ratio. So she was selling and the price was right and I just couldn't resist. Made her happy to sell her baby to a friend and made me happy to get a well maintained and loved boat that I could use for camping. And since my partner is on a beach in San Diego today, I just bought it. Then I used it for safety boating. Didn't even take Journey off the roof of the Subaru.

Which would you rather paddle, The boat or the log?

Me in my New Tempest 170. It is very slimming, No?

Really Ugly Goose looks on

Jump to Part II

100 Stair Beach

100 Stair Beach

My partner grew up in the Portland area and her family had a tradition of going to the coast and of going rock hunting.. Because of this, she has been bugging me for months to go to one of her favorite little beaches to do some Agate hunting.

Well, this weekend was finally the day. The weather was going to turn sunny for a day and we both had a little bit of time to kill, and besides, it was her birthday!! (Well, at least the same month as her birthday). So we threw some snacks and some extra jackets (always bring extra jackets when you go to the Oregon coast) into the back of the Action Adventure Mobile, and off we went.

Our target beach is call 100 Stair Beach. You will never guess why it is called this. I actually counted 132 stairs (though the height and step size are varied and in some cases arguable), but I guess it would not be such a romatic notion to call it “One Hundred and Thirty Two Stair Beach”. The beach is out on Cape Meares just a little south of the Cape Meares Light. In previvous seasons we would have gotten there by going north around Cape Meares on the loop road. But the road was washed out by landslides a year or so ago just North of the Light and they haven't got it fixed yet (perhaps they can't fix it). Anway, you have to go South around through Oceanside to get to the 100 steps.

The Spring flowers are starting

 

Not sure what this little tunnel was for.... Perhaps to get out of the rain.

The steps down look like they were put in by private groups over the last 60 years. The are just wood and dirt steps, with a few drift wood based benches and such along the way.

In truth, 100 steps isn't all that many. Just 5 or 6 floors in a normal building. But those steps will get you from a small fading sign on the side of the road (with parking for like 10 cars) down to a really wonderful and picturesque little beach. Since this is an Agate hunting beach (and evidently a pretty well known one) I knew there had to be a stream or two emptying onto the sand. In fact, there was a stream or two, but very little sand. This is good, because we were not sand hunting, we were rock hunting. And if you want to find big agates, you have to look in stacks of big rocks.

 

Is that an Agate?

Right where the cliff ends the strip of rounded volcanic rock starts. Hundreds of thousands of flat egg shaped black rocks that stretch up and down the beach to the headlands at either end that define this little cove. Just off shore is a rocky cliff island. During low tide you can walk to the island. I don't see any way to get up on top of it, however. Too steep. I think the local authorities would frown on such an exercise anyway. Don't want you tromping around and upsetting the nesting avian life.

My partner and I had worn our 5 fingers wet shoes so that we could walk through the water and stones without hurting our feet. We may have been better off in our kayak dry suit booties, as the water was cold and the stones were hard. Our feet got both numb and bruised at the same time. We first walked along a little spit of sand. My partner told me that her biggest fear was that the recent storms would have stirred up the sand and pushed it up over the rocks. When that happens the entire beach is sand. Which is nice and all except for the absense or Agates. As it was, things were looking pretty good for our hunting experience except that the tides were ill timed for that day and had already started back in. Ideally you hunt for agates in the retreating surf. Not the charging-in surf.

We were not alone on our beach. There were a number of kids and adults out there. Most of the kids were carrying big plastic buckets. Buckets that they carried in such a way as to suggest that they were not light. i.e. buckets full of rocks.

My partner asked one boy what he was collecting. He gave her an incredulous look and said “We are finding Agates”.

“Have you found any?”

“Oh, yeah. Lots”

“Can you show me one?”

At this point he put down his bucket and started to dig through the gloves and socks on top. Then he stopped and said, “They are going to be on the bottom and too hard to get too.”.

“That's OK,” I chimed in. Then I asked the important questions, “How big are they?”

“Oh, the big ones are about the size of marbles. Lots o small ones, though”

OK, So, we started our own hunt. My partner said that she had never found an agate on the South side of the island before. So we slugged over to the North side and began our search. We started finding some small ones pretty much immediately.

 

I like looking for agates. It is very soothing. You need to position yourself such that the sun is at an angle where your shadow doesn't fall on your search area, bend over and get close to the sand, and then empty your mind off all thought and let the shiny clearness of a wet agate find YOU. And then when you find one...... scrape around in that area a bit looking for more, because agates travel in packs.

Oh, one more thing. Since you are hunting for agates on the west coast, in the afternoon (so the sun isn't blocked by the cliffs), you are going to be hunting with your back to the sea. You are going to be hunting with your back to the sea, right at the edge of the land water boundary on an in coming tide. Since you are tightly focused on the agate finding function, sooner or later a bigger than average wave is going to come up behind you and, if it doesn't just knock your face in the sand, it will get you very wet. Deal with it. Perhaps bring a spotter. And bring a spotter than will warn you in a manner other than pulling out her camera and waiting until you get drenched. (Editor's note, notice who's in the photos getting drenched, and who must be wave spotting for whom)

 

So we are hunting and hunting. Getting a lot of tiny little things. Then I find a place where I find like 5 pea sized rocks in a row. Oh, what a find. I run over to my partner to show her how amazing I am. She looks and agrees that I am truly amazing. Then she shows me her hand. She has twice as many marble sized ones. DAMMIT.

“This isn't a contest, you know, Jon. Why do you feel you have to measure the size of everything?”

Easy for a person with the largest Agate to say.

We searched our way down the beach almost to where it ended in the cliffs. Then we walked away from the shore a bit to where the rocks got big enough to sit on and eat lunch. The wind was cold, our feet were cold, but the sun was out and the rock we sat on was warm. I also earned extra points because I had remembered to bring one of those chemical hand-warmers and I gave it to my partner to warm her poor, cold, agate hunting hands.

Wow, since you bring it up, I think I will take this opportunity to talk about this great hand-warming technology. I like these things because they are such cool science. They consist of a sealed bag of supercooled liquid. When a crystallization site is provided (by the clicking of a metal disk) the liquid quickly solidifies and the phase change brings about a release of heat. The heat lasts for about 15 minutes, but after it is done, you can reset the reaction by putting the (now solid) plastic bag into a tub of boiling water until the crystals melt. Then you let them cool and you can do it all over again.

The chemical mix used in these things is a supersaturate mixture of Sodium Acetate. I got this particular one for Christmas (I think it came from Urban Outfitters). I have other ones, but this is by far the nicest.

Ok. Sorry. Engineer Jon got out there for a minute. Where were we? Oh yes, romantic lunch on the beach with our slowly warming hands and feet.

The tide was starting to come up high enough to endanger our lunch spot, so we packed up and headed back down the beach again. We were trying to head back to the car but we just couldn't resist stopping and looking for agates as many times as our backs could stand it. Got hit by a couple of more waves. Got our pants pretty wet. But my partner came up with the find of the day with a huge golf ball sized agate. (I have pictures !!).

Look at that Rock!!

By the time we got back to the stairwell, our feet were once again very cold and they were also very sore from walking on the larger rocks. Ouch. But up the stairs we went.

I could feel the heat leaching back into my toes as we drove back around the peninsula toward Tillamook. We stopped at our favorite little hole in the wall restaurant, the Pacific Restaurant. A quaint little place built into an old strip motel. But the food is tremendous.