As promised in my last blog, we started the grand adventure on Tuesday, July 13th. Sometimes these things just have a plan of their own. Join us on an alternate grand adventure.

On our original plan, Ed and Sarah were planning to meet us on the St. Helens city docks and we were to do lots of hiking and playing around town until Phil and Sue arrived on Thursday afternoon on Rendezvous. So far our plans were working just fine. On Wednesday we hiked out to Columbia City and we all had a great time looking over Pixie Park and the deep woods in-between. Then we took in the Columbia County Fair so we had a long day of walking.

Phil and Sue arrived on schedule on Thursday afternoon. Phil spent the afternoon trying to shame Ed and I into polishing up our boats. We were quite content to watch and point out little cosmetic blemishes. For our evening entertainment the city of St. Helens scheduled a “music in the park” event just a few steps from our docks. Renee, Neil and Georgia all came out to have supper with us and listen to the music. Judy and I met a remarkable number of people we knew from our earlier life living in this community. Supper was Sarah’s famous fish stew and Judy’s famous 5 bean salad that has about 7 varieties of beans. Don’t ask me why it is 5 bean salad. Georgia had great fun playing with the knobs and switches on the big boats; Ed and Sarah’s boat, the Hokuloa and Phil and Sue’s boat the Rendezvous.

Friday morning was bright and sunny with about 15 mph winds and a heavy chop coming from the north. I changed down to the small jib and arranged for a reef in the main. About then Ed calls over that he has a bit of a problem. A gremlin had gotten into the instruments and each of them boldly stated ‘CODELOCK.” We studied the manuals and looked for faults in the wiring for over two hours. We even studied the possibility that the gremlin was the button pusher, Georgia, but we were able to absolve her of any involvement. It appears the instruments had lost power for a few moments and all of them decided that they were now stolen. We would be required to enter a code to get them to display depth, speed and wind information. The problem is no one had the foggiest notion what the code number might be. We decided that it was unwise to tackle a trip down the Columbia River with all its sand bars and mud banks without a depth finder.

Alternate plans were debated and a leisurely trip up the Multnomah channel of the Willamette River back toward Ed’s moorings seemed the prudent thing to do. All three boats started out and we were all soon under sail. Now I don’t want to brag too much, but Judy and I got the last start from the docks and at one point we passed both of the big boats. Now if you talk to them they will have stories about only flying half their sails to make it fair, but fair is fair and we were behind and we briefly got ahead. That is a win and that is that. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to get the camera out to take the photo finish picture so you will just have to take my word for it.

We camped two nights on Coon Island, a popular boat only park in the Willamette River. We hiked around the island. We had to hike fast to keep ahead of the mosquitoes.

As usual for this group the week involved lots of eating. Menus had been drawn up long in advance so there was lots of gourmet food and tasty wines to sample each evening. Many times the leftovers wound up in the omelets the next morning.

Finally on Sunday we all finished the trip to Big Island Marina on Sauvie Island. Phil and Sue returned to Portland and Judy and I were able to hang out for another day of gourmet cooking, instrument trouble shooting and hiking. Tomorrow we too will return to Arcturus who has been patiently waiting in St. Helens.