October 8, 2000 - Winchester Bay, OR
The Duske's had already arrived by the time we got there, but I had no idea which parking lot to look in, much less where in the parking lot to find them. There was a "real" RV park, but Duske's had told us we'd be boondocking (no utilities) so that ruled out the park. Fortunately for us they had their CB radio turned on so we could find them. They spotted us before we spotted them, and it was fun getting "talked in" to the space next to them in the fog. It had been foggy all day and most the time we couldn't even see the ocean. So much for taking the coastal highway so we could enjoy the view! It was a twisty, hilly road so I enjoyed the ride a lot. I really like that kind of road.
If Marc had picked a spot any closer to the water, we'd have had problems. The tail of his trailer was so far back that we couldn't walk around behind it. As it was, we didn't need to. This was one of our favorite parking places, with a killer view out the kitchen window of the marina. Kind of impressive looking trucks, don't you think? His license bracket says something about big boys and big toys. He's a good bit bigger than I am, so he can get away with stuff like that. We're on the left and they're on the right in the left-hand photo. and that's his boat tied to his bumper on the right, making me jealous because my boat has never been in the water!!
First order of the next day for the Jenkins' was to run back up the coast because it wasn't foggy, and do some touristing kinds of things. Rachael, Duske's 14 yr old daughter was willing to tag along and act as our tour guide if we made it far enough north to hit the aquarium in Newport. In the meantime, we stopped at a lighthouse, climbed to the top with a tour guide with me firmly planted between the crowd and the door! Since we've all seen lighthouses, no point in taking a picture of this one, right? Both Barb and Rachael were impressed by the size of the root ball of the tree that had fallen over but still growing.
AHA! A waterfall! Seems at one time the lighthouse keepers lived at the base of the lighthouse, and had built a small dam here to provide themselves with some fresh water. We found some ancient rusted pipe, and other indications that we weren't the first people here. Then we quit fooling around and went to the aquarium. Great experience. Both inside and outside exhibits. One of the outside exhibits included a bird cage that covered nearly a city block and paths for the humans. This puffin kept wandering around with it's mouth full of fish, but wouldn't eat them. Turned out it was a female who had young ones it was feeding on the other side of the exhibit -- when it could get through the crowd of humans to get there! Which, of course, it eventually did.
I'd never seen jelly fish up close (without suffering the consequences) before, nor had I seen so many varieties of the odd animals. And of course, there's always the "kid in the exhibit" trick. Barb has crawled under a tank that holds a bunch of small plants and animals, and taken advantage of the alternative viewing angle.
And of course, we had to have a picture of our guide. Now, on the right I want you to carefully look at the figure on the right. In the green foulweather gear. With rain dripping off his nose and beard. Yes! That's me! And I'm fishing!! AT LAST!! How fitting that it was cold and raining. Just like Alaska. No way was I going to spend 5 days this close to water and not go fishing, so on our trip north I bought a license. No license needed to go crabbing, by the way. Which we had much better luck at than we did fishing. I managed to catch some too small ones, including getting a bullhead on each of my two hooks on one occasion. Claudia got a picture of that and it's in here someplace -- I just can't find it at the moment!
The dunes off the beach at the start of this jetty are just a hint of what the Oregon dunes really are like. We saw miles of huge dunes with lots of campers having fun with all kind of vehicles kicking up the sand. We thought of Karen Pribnow a lot, because on more than one occasion she'd mentioned the fun she'd had here as a girl on vacations. This was the third time we'd seen something a friend had pointed us to.
To heck with digging holes all over the beach looking for sand worms, whatever they are. We're going to be smart and use mussels, of which there are an abundance. This jetty stuck out into the ocean a good 1/4 mile, and wasn't the easiest walking we'd ever done, either! Some smart guy with a bucket full of surf perch told us we needed to use sand worms to get the perch. Hrumpfh!
I was impressed by the oyster beds. Looked like plastic 50 gallon water jugs anchored all in rows throughout this little inlet. Fancy looking boat could straddle the jug and looked like it had a winch all set up to just haul in the catch. Wish we'd seen them working the system, but it was Labor Day, after all. And there's the intrepid fishermen working hard to slip the slimy, squishy, smelly mussels onto the hooks.
Eh? Whazzat? (Stupid hearing aid doesn't work worth a darn in the pounding surf!) You think my boots are too short to get out far enough and that's why I can't catch any fish? Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it! And even with his tall boots, Marc didn't have any better luck than I did.
If you look closely in the boat, you can see a seagull trying to steal our crab bait. And guess which seat is Marc's! #$%&*@!! seagulls anyway!
YEE HAWWW!! What a red-letter day! The boat finally went in the water. And I'm in just a T-shirt. Where's the cold? The fog? The wind? And the boat even floats with me and the engine! What a kick.
With escort handy, it's off to the briny depths we go. Well, almost. Seems the engine doesn't run in mid-range. Idle's OK and goes full throttle OK, but no mid range. Hummmm. What's so funny, Marc? Just because it's not your engine that's being snotty! What'da mean tie it to the pier and run it for a day or so? Well, turned out that's exactly what the factory technicians told the local dealer technician to do. Apparently a batch of these engines have something different about them right from the factory and need to be "broken in" before they'll run right.
Smiles all around, and a sad farewell. Great crab, great fun, and great friends.