After our launch we went down river for a week and stayed at McCuddy's Big Oak Marina in Scappose Oregon. The Multanomah Channel is a great place, quiet, very green banks and a slow moving channel. Lovely mornings waking to a fog shrouded channel gradually the sun would peek through and burn off the fog leaving bright and sunny days. It was a lovely time. But it was time to go back to our home port of Hood River. We took 3 days to get there, traveling in company with Rob and Becky in their CHB 34 trawler. We had great weather, sunny and in the low 70's with no wind, a very peaceful uneventful day. The end of the first day we overnighted at Camas/Washougal on the Washington side of the river. A great harbor with a delightful restaurant on the water. The next day we got off about 10 am, motored to Beacon Rock where we lunched then started upriver against the current. Bonneville Dam was letting water out of the dam and it took a couple of hours running the engine at full throttle against the current only to be making about 1/2 a knot over the ground. We were keeping to the Washington shore line running in about 15 foot depth against 5.5 knots of current when our engine quit. No sputtering, just stopped. Walt called out "drop the anchor" and believe me it was down in short order. In those few seconds we drifted back in the current several hundred feet until our anchor grabbed hold, but was bouncing on the gravel bottom. Walt changed fuel tanks and miraculously the engine started immediately. I did not have the strength to bring in the anchor (by hand) so we changed places, Walt on the anchor and me on the helm, got everything secure and were on our way again. Just like nothing had happened! We were fortunate! Could have been a disaster! We still do not know why the engine quit, if we had run out of fuel the engine would not have started right up because of air in the lines. Only goes to show, you should always have an anchor rigged and ready to deploy!
After that "adventure" going thru the locks was a piece of cake. We spent the night at Cascade Locks and awoke in the morning to fog and rain. Again, it was beautiful. We were prepared with foul weather gear and the rain was not hard so it was a comfortable trip thru the fog shrouded Gorge. Once we reached Wind Mountain near Hood River the sun was out and we got the boat back to it's slip in Hood River Marina. Nice to be back home again!
The down river trip with Rob and Becky in their boat was delightful! Warm, sunny and not too much wind, we sat up on the bridge deck and made it back to Scappose, their home port in 2 days.
So, winter is setting upon us. We still have the mast to work on this winter and Marty will be sewing our Sailrite sail kits for the furling genoa and mainsail. Next spring....after resetting a newly rerigged mast and rigging, we hope to head to Puget Sound.
See you here on this blog next Spring to continue (or really begin) the Chronicles of Brigadoon!
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