Off the OR Coast
01 July 2012 | North Pacific Ocean
JoLe & KC Wilson
We left Astoria this morning around 6 a.m. and "ran the bar", as it's called, again. Running the bar entails going out of the mouth of the Columbia River as it meets the ocean. We have heard terrible tales about running the bar but our two experiences were pretty tame, although coming in Thursday p.m. was much choppier and wave heights higher than they were today. Today it was just big rollers. We were able to time our exit on the ebb tide which helped.
We really enjoyed our time in Astoria, enjoyed the town. Yesterday we went to the Maritime Museum which, if we weren't concerned about running the bar before, totally changed our outlook on it. The Museum is mostly about the Coast Guard, the number of boats and lives lost running the bar, and the bar and river pilots. The Coast Guard trains it's rescue boats here as the bar is considered to be one of the worst in the world.
Weather so far has been nice, sunny, blue sky but there are some clouds on the horizon. It was 59 degrees when we woke up this morning, warm, comparatively. So far we sailed a bit, motored a bit, and motor-sailed even more since the winds are light and we want to get south. We're currently heading SW to get off shore further where it looks like the winds will be from the N, NW for the next few days.