Great Ambition, sixth year

This is the continuing story of our new life as River Rats on the Columbia River aboard our Catamaran Cruisers houseboat we named Great Ambition.

If you want to see how we got here (and hints on how you can do it too) see Great Ambition, the beginning.

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Click here to go back to our fifth year.

I finally conviced Gracie, the Island Kitty to come on board Lil' Ambition. She's still a little skitish and would jump off in a heartbeat if I tried to take her for a cruise but at least I can spend time with her in our own little portable living room!

A nice shot of Lil' Ambition. She's 4 years old but still looks great! What a great purchase this was! You could have one too!

Wow, what a great sunset!

A couple out in their boat during the awesome sunset.

The day begins.

In addition to all the free wood you can use there are other free treasures. Here is a glass and Kevlar kayak that could use some TLC.

I also found some dogs. These are really handy for tying logs up to docks. Just pound it into the log and tie on!

An Osprey flies by with his catch. Notice how he holds the fish head into the wind.

A Grass Compass, and in this case a sort of natural wind gauge. The wind spins the "needle" around to report windspeed.

And here is how a grass compass is made.

This one is interesting. In addition to the head raking a pattern in the sand the shaft has flattened a high spot nearer the root into a plateau.

A whole bunch of them!

Another grass compass.

And another!

Sunset, what I'm out here for after all.

We spent a really nice day on the island. Click on the photo to see a larger image.

Here we caught a Streak Backed Oriole

We see this ship come by once in a while. She's got a nice cargo ramp, that's for sure! Looks like a section of freeway!

Ships passing in front of the island!

Had another nice day on the island with Gracie.

Nice shot of Pier One.

Sunset on June 21st, Summer Solstice (more or less).

A floatplane going by. I missed his landing on the river, darn it!

A frog at the edge of the swamp on the island. He can see me, you can see just a tiny bit of his pupil. He jumped away right after I took this shot.

A nice spot on the forest trail we call Five Finger Jack. It is difficult to climb over but the deer manage by leaping over it. We can tell because there are deep impacted hoof prints on either side of the tree.

Getting picked up from the island by Lil' Ambition.

I hiked to Daisy Glade, got a good crop this year too, not as good as last year though.

A ship is pretty big compared to a house. Of course the house is a little bit behind the ship, so it's not that big, but still, it's pretty big!

A tug going downstream with Lil' Ambition in the foreground.

I don't know what this effect is called, the primsmatic sun reflection on the right is caused by the same effect that causes a rainbow and the angle is the same too. Pretty...

More sunset shots on the 27th of June.

A boat going by during the sunset. The photo is a little bit crooked, but if I tweaked it the details would fuzz out, so enjoy it as it is.

What is that in the sunset? Put your mouse over the photo for a better look.

July first already! Lil' Ambition looks great with the sun shining on the foggy hills in the background.

Sunset, worth sticking around for!

A nice shot of a tug going by as Lil' Ambition and the dinghy float safely offshore thanks to my Anchor Buddy.

Two new movies! First is a short of Gracie the Island kitty playing on the beach. She's a nut!

Then we had three ships go by. I added audio from winter foghorns, obviously ships don't run around honking at each other.

We got out of the slip again! We're at Southend, what the locals call "The Point" but right now there is no "point" because the water is still really high! Here the wife is relaxing with her morning coffee.

We caught a doe and her fawn swimming across the channel to Caterpillar Island, but when we made a move for our cameras the doe turned back and her fawn followed. Sorry gals, we just wanted to capture the beautiful scene of mother and child!

Sunset on the 8th of July.

And here is how we capture sunsets.

A Bald Eagle catches a fish and behind him a Blue Heron applies his trade as well.

And later the Bald Eagle takes to the air.

The view from inside our home during sunset.

A Bald Eagle catches a fish near the shore and then has to drag it back to the beach. To make matters worse a jealous Osprey dive bombs the eagle from above to hinder his progress.

Our Southend camp and home with Lil' Ambition docked alongside Great Ambition.

If you look closely at my dinghy in the above shot you'll notice what looks like a tumor on the bottom. Sometime in the last week or so I punched a 4 inch gash in my dinghy and when I finally figured it out I looked up welding HDPE (High Density Polyethylene) online. All it took was a propane torch, a pair of leather work gloves and strips of HDPE cut from a discarded one gallon milk jug. While it looks ugly, the strips of milk jug blended right into the hull material and formed a permanent bond. Ugly as hell, but good as new!

This is something new! An Ice Cream Boat complete with annoying melody playing on a tinny loudspeaker. Whatever "floats your boat"!

Here is a little video showing how I park this beast back in the slip. Notice the DVR has one channel that is fuzzed out for a while, that is a camera on the dock that beams its signal to Great Ambition. Since all four cameras feed to the Chartplotter onboard I can watch from the helm how I'm doing. When I get close the signal fromt the dock camera starts coming in and I can see the "birds eye view" on my chartplotter and see how I'm doing.

We're headed for Southend again. This picture shows the grueling quarter mile journey.

Last night there were people camping here. Then around 9PM (high tide) they packed up and left. I wonder why?

Someone burning on Sauvie Island. Not to worry, they had it under control.

Juneta taking a cruise out on the river. She's an oldie but a goodie.

Another old boat goes by. Salty Lady went out for a while and despite her years made it back under her own power.

The view off the front dock while we are at Southend.

Back in the slip we still get lots of wildlife viewing opporunities.

While towing a wakeboarding neighbor I got this shot of a sternwheeler with Mount Saint Helens just off the bow of boat.

We kitty-napped Gracie, the island kitty and brought her to the dock. She roamed around a bit but wasn't happy on the dock.

Gracie missed her island home so we took her back to the island the same day we kitty-napped her.

The temps got up into the triple digits so we cooled off in the river. The river is still really high so the current is surprisingly strong. It's dangerous to swim here if you don't have a good grip on a rope going back to the boat. We have an extra float just in case you miss the throwable cushions.

The cargo ship Karaweik heading into Portland. This shot was taken from the Oregon side and in this shot, by an odd coincidence I got Pier One on Caterpillar Island in the background.

A shot of Karweik's rudder and in the background is the Southend Point on Caterpillar Island.

Gracie waiting for her breakfast. However the direct shot was too washed out so I took the reflection from the water and mirrored it.

Venus, the Moon and Jupiter. You can see the solar system's orbital plane making a line at about 45 degrees to the horizon. That's because we're at about 45 degrees above the equator.

We're at Southend again! Here is a nice shot of our view from the front deck.

A nice shot of us at Southend.

Here are a couple of great shots of us at our spot at Southend taken from the water.

A nice shot of the Moon, Venus and Jupiter (bottom to top) in the early dawn. Compare that to the shot just two days ago and you can see that the moon is moving from the west to the east.

A pre-dawn shot of Adriatic Sea and her fuel barge.

Adriatic Sea had a rough night. As the tide came in and the North wind blew her barge's anchor let go and dragged. She end up way down by Frenchman's bar, then pulled up the anchor on the barge and headed back downstream to reset. Later in the day she actually reset again. There is a good reason these barges have crew on board when they are anchored.

A nice shot of our view with the sunshine reflecting on the underside of our sunshade.

A shot off the front deck. Adriatic Sea and her barge are gone.

A shot off the back deck.

We brought Gracie back to the dock so I'll give her a nice little floating home to live in. You might recognize it, it's the same one she had in the forest. Let's see if she uses it!

Gracie is sleeping in Lil' Ambition a lot. She doesn't seem to like her floating home. The same home she lived in over the winter! Maybe it's too tippy.

Sunset.

A deadhead in the river. Pretty scarey if you hit this at high speed.

Gracie didn't seem to enjoy life on the dock. She was constantly following me down the dock and run into a dog, or another cat and get into trouble, so I convinced her to go back to island. She's much happier there, no competition at all!

A panorama of the channel. Click on the photo to get a larger view.

Summer is over, the fog is here.

It's harvest time and there is a lot of wild food to harvest. The Fruit Valley region of Vancouver is true to its namesake, there are walnuts, apples, pears and even wheat growing wild in the wildlife refuge.

Sometimes it's easier to just carry the cat though the forest. She goes totally limp in my arms and trusts me implcitly. Contrast that with a year ago where I couldn't even approch her.

A tug pulls a barge in the sunset. You can tell she's pulling because she has 3 mast lights lit, plus you can see the green navigation light on this side.

Bad people sometimes camp on my island. Here they left a pile of trash. I suppose I'll have to pick it up, lest everyone decides this is a dump and just piles it neck deep in garbage.

April driving Lil' Ambition back from our sunset beach stroll.

When the ships are in port they get restocked for their journey back across the Pacific. Sometimes things fall overboard. I gave these to a gal who owns rabbits, they really loved the treats!

With the water so low lost goodies appear on the bottom. This boombox is toast, but inside it had a tape of organ music. Not my cup of tea but I put it in the free pile so maybe someone will enjoy it.

When I find lost sandals I bring them back and nail them to the dock to serve as bumpers. They work well and look great.

Carolyn Dicky's old house on the hard. It's sad to see these nice little homes fall apart like this, but that's what happens when the state is hostile to wealth.

A web of some kind in a tree on the island. Kind of spooky, like Alien or something.

Reflections...

When the water is down the Southend channel gets pretty difficult to navigate! Click the photo to enlarge.

The geese are here again. Click on the photo to enlarge.

A nice pano view of the Southend Channel entrance. Click on the photo to enlarge.

The sky started looking like there was going to be some color so we jumped in Lil' Ambition and headed out to catch the sunset. Good move!

Then one of the gillnetters came out to get ready for a night of fishing.

And a yacht heading upstream came into view pulling his dinghy.

The geese were crossing in front of the sunset while migrating to Sauvie Island.

The final shot. This was a good sunset!!!

A pretty picture of the moon near our old marina. You might notice the old dead phone lines. Each one of those phone lines belonged to someone who lived here, but the State of Washington Department of Natural Resources decided to make them all homeless. Their crime? Living in a beautiful place that the state workers could not live in. It's not that the state workers are poor, far from it, but they have to quash the dreams of anyone who has the gumption to live a good life that they would not choose.

A sure sign of old growth forest.

Getting picked up from the island after a day of roaming through the forest. It's a rough life, but someone has to live it.

Sparkles in river. They only look like this in the Fall due to the odd angle of the sun and the nearly constant North wind driven waves.

We got some strong East winds which brought down several trees. Here some guys are cleaning up the debris.

A boat in our marina was hit by a falling tree.

And amazingly one of the security cameras caught the tree fall. Notice the Steve, the maintenance guy was nearly killed by this tree coming down!

Because it hasn't rained in months the trees are getting cleaned out by the wind. Wow, that's a lot of cotton, dirt, leaves, bird nests, etc.

A sailboat heading upstream flying his headsail in the strong wind. Notice there is something above and to the left of his mast.

Look closely, it's a bald eagle soaring over the wind driven life from the trees on the far side of the river.

Deer tracks coming out of the river. Since there were no tracks anywhere else on the beach it means this deer swam the full 0.52 miles across the river from Sauvie Island.

A salmon after the breeding die-off.

The sunset afterglow.

Every October the water gets to very low levels. That causes most of the sailboats a fair bit of grief. Too bad the State of Washington won't let us dredge.

Another sailboat on the bottom.

Gracie, the island kitty knows how to climb a tree. It's probably the only reason she's still alive!

Clear blue skies and smooth water.

Winter is coming.

You never know what you are going to find on the beach. Here is a label from some minesweeping equipment on the beach. Who knows how this got here!

And you never know what will be floating down the channel. His is a nasty chunk of wood with metal spikes in it. Probably part of an old dock cut free and set to drift away. It would really suck to run into this at high speed.

While checking out Google Maps with a friend I found that Google had once again updated its satellite imagery. When the satellite flew over we were on anchor at Southend!

Look closely and you can see Lil' Ambition on the port side of the houseboat and the dinghy on the starboard side. Also you can see our chairs on the beach.

And here are our empty slips back at the marina.

Hericium ramosum, one of our favorite fungi. It's really great chopped up and cooked into Rice-A-Roni or meatloaf. It's safe to eat cooked or raw. That's not true with some fungi, such as False Morels, you must cook them and pour off the water to be safe. So cooking False Morels into a meatloaf would be a big mistake, but Hericium ramosum is fine either way.

Here's a closeup so you don't confuse it with something else.

Hericium ramosum "on the hoof" so to speak. Good stuff!

We had a tree fall in some heavy winds and it knocked the power out for several hours. Good thing we have two generators!

Sunrise, wonderful!

The slough in the light from the above sunrise.

A mallard has been hanging around this finger over the last few days.

The tug Ramona pushing a new barge up the channel to Chris Jone's moorage upstream.

A nice pano shot of the river near the end of January.

Southend, just lovely!

A gent in a canoe came by, he's a big fan of this website. These pix are for you, enjoy!

A paddling of Scaups has been hanging around the slough. They are quite different from the Merganzers although they seem to be able to mix a bit without much tension.

Sunrise looking out the back door.

A raccoon walking the shoreline.

Sunrise in the slough.

Could this be the same raccoon we saw just yesterday?

And a female Scaup!

First an apology to followers of this photo blog. I have been unable to update for a while since I picked up a full time job and two consulting jobs. I am sorry, I hope you'll stay with me. It's just a little harder now with so many things competing for my time including a three week trip to Dallas that (obviously) prevented me from taking photos on the river. The good news is that I got to visit Bullard Texas and get some awesome shots there. I won't bore you with those, but here is a nice one.

After I got back from Texas we took Lil' Ambition out and enjoyed the sunset. Here is a nice panorama of nearly all of Caterpillar Island in the sun. Click on the photo for a larger image.

While out there we saw a pair of sea lions hanging around. The smelt run was great this year and the sea lions apparently followed the smelt up the river.

That night's sunset. Very nice, muted but nice.

A shot of Pier One with Woodland Washington in the background and a Bald Eagle flying away from munching on smelt on the beach.

A Bald Eagle footprint against my boot. This was from the Bald Eagle above, I guess I scared him away while he was munching on smelt on the beach. I wear size 11 boots so this is a damn big footprint. Notice how the rear talon left a wonderfully deep imprint in the sand.

Hiking around in the forest on Easter Sunday we came across this guy. He laid still while we tried to scoot past him on the narrow trail. Didn't want to disturb his sunbathing.

After a long day of work and a long hard slog home on the freeway I decided I needed a stroll on the island. Here I am shooting back to look at Great Ambition as I motor up to Southend Point.

Rounding the corner near the Southend of Caterpillar Island I pass between the shore and Balum's Pole. Here a fellow named Dick Balum had a house that he loved dearly. Why not, what a great view!

A beaver loitering on the bank before heading out for a night's work.

On the beach now, I don't think I'll get a blazing sunset but time will tell. I've been fooled before!

Walking on the island now, I head for one of my favorite trees near the entrance to one of my trails. This sure is a big tree!

A shot of my entrance into the woods. You see the trail right? No? Well, you're not supposed to, I hide my trails by letting the entrances overgrow to the point where you can't find them easily.

Deer bones I found several years ago. I suppose you could go back over the years to figure out when I found them. The animals play with them from time to time but April likes them sitting on this log. They look nice there on the green carpet.

This is my favorite spot to come for False Morels and what do you know? I found some!

And not just some, a whole bunch!

As predicted the sunset was a fizzle. That's OK, every sunset you see lets you celebrate one more day on this wonderful planet.

On a cruise out to the island I got this nice shot of the channel and Balum's Pole.

A beaver cruised around in front of the house for several minutes. He was snorting and breathing hard like he was agitated about something, although in this shot he looks pretty calm.

And a great big tail slap!

And another tail slap!

Great shot of his tail poised to make another slap.

We went out to the island and hiked all the way across the island to the East side. Here is a nice panorama of Fisherman's Channel just North of the boat launch. Click on the photo for a larger image.

I found a partially used can of Barbasol shaving cream on the beach. What should I doe with it? How's about doing some beach-writing?

A nice shot of April walking down the beach after getting some nice photos herself.

We took a cruise in Lil' Ambition to see if we could catch a decent sunset. Only time will tell. The wind was strong and the current stronger so we set an anchor and just waited. Here is a nice shot of Caterpillar Island during Golden Hour.

A great shot of our favorite tug, the Nancy Ann. She's pushing a barge full of gravel up to Portland to make (what else?) Portland Cement!

A nice backlit shot of the pilothouse of the Nancy Ann. Notice that the captain has drawn a curtain across the starboard window to shield him from the intense sun just before sunset.

The Sternwheeler coming back from Astoria.

The beginnings of a sunset. Will it be a dud or will it light the sky on fire?

Look at the way the lower clouds cast shadows through the sky. Amazing!

Last one. Fantastic!

We moved to the city! Well, no, the city limits moved to us. Unfortunately we are now officially city dwellers, but if we don't want to be we can simply move to a slip further North and the problem is solved!

A pair of Wood Ducks came by for a visit.

What a lovely pair. They are monogamous over the breeding season. But next year they will likely find new mates.

Just the male. He sure is beautiful.

Cloudy sky against the glassy river.

As we were having our morning coffee on the front deck I noticed a Sea Lion coming up the channel. While we were ready for him the shutter lag was just a little too long. He surfaced right in front of our boat not more than five feet from the bow.

Second surfacing further down the channel.

A little later the same day we watched about 30 rowing teams pass down the channel. You can see April on the front deck watching them go by.

I thought that they might be circumnavigating the island and later some did come back around, but not all.

Heading out for a walk on the island we found these two geese relaxing on this log stuck in the channel off Southend beach.

We took a walk in the forest and came across this beautiful fern rolling out a new frond.

On the beach we watched a ship pass by the island heading for sea. Woodland Washington is in the background.

A Christensen Yacht named Felicitas headed upstream throwing a mighty wake.

Neptune Leader heading into Portland to drop off a load of imported cars.

A few bird photos for you. Here we see an Osprey in a tree right across the channel from us. Look closely and you can see that he is perched on the branch with a fish between his talons!

Here you can see him eating the fish. It's nice having their favorite perching tree right across from us.

Then we saw a Bald Eagle flying over us catching a thermal.

I caught him on another circuit at almost exactly the same angle.

Nice shot of the river and beach along with Pier One further down the beach. Click for a larger shot.

Another Bald Eagle!

We took a stroll in the forest and saw some interesting things. Here is a spider web that was glinting in the sun. My Kodak ZD710 may be old but it still does a nice job of focusing on the right thing.

And here is the perfect fern! A dappling of sunlight and it is gorgeous!

Because of the blooming Scotch Broom we decided to call this hill The Scottish Highlands.

And by the way, today makes 6 years since Great Ambition arrived! We made it 6 years and we have plans to upgrade her so she can be our home for many more years. Details soon, stay tuned! To celebrate here is a shot of April grinning like a Cheshire Cat after we parked at Rogers Marine to install the Radar, DirecTV dish and VHF radio. Our first successful landing ever!

The log that got stuck right off the Southend Channel is still there. Where will it end up, we are a bit concerned it might come down the slough at us!

The North end of the island. It's pretty clear this is an island!

Three outstanding eagle shots!

April got a new camera, lets see how it stacks up against my trusty Kodak ZD710. First, as shot with my camera, then the same scene shot with April's new Sony DSC-HX300.

A nice walk in the forest after a rainy night leaves some lovely images.

A bumblebee resting on a float in the meadow.

We went out to see the sunset. While the sunset was a flop the sun did give is a nice bit of Effetto Dio (God's Effect).

When taking pictures be aware of the lighting. Here is a comparison between two shots taken minutes apart. First is one with poor lighting. Plenty of detail but poor exposure.

In good lighting everything comes alive. And yes, the Osprey did move between shots.

We went out for a drift on the river. I got this rather dramatic pano shot of Caterpillar Island with the Cottonwood trees being blown from the Southwest. The brightness of leaves is due to the fact that you are seeing the underside of the leaves as the wind blows them bottom side out. Click on the shot for a larger view.

An Osprey in flight and a bit of a late shot. Still he looks pretty magnificent from the rear!

A dramatically lit shot of an Osprey at Northend near sunset.

And then he takes flight! Look closely and you can even see his talons dangling below him.

A Bald Eagle flies by as we head back to the marina after our drift.

While coming up Fisherman's Channel I tried a panorama shot. A pano shot from a boat is especially tricky because it's hard to make sure you are going to be in the same place over the two shots required and the fact that our wake caught up with us and passed by into the field of the shot. But the camera did a nice job of blending the water together to make a seamless pano shot. You can see the water pump on the left, then the boat ramp and finally the marina dead center of the shot. Click on the shot for a larger view.

We took a walk on the island and saw some really neat things. To start with deep in the forest was a spider web filled with cotton. Nature's version of a cotton and silk blend fabric.

Some interesting looking flowers.

Some strange looking mushrooms growing out of a log.

A daisy partially shaded by a nearby bud.

A nice panorama of Lil' Ambition at Southend. Click on the picture to see a larger image.

A nice shot of the beach and river near Pier One.

A very small Goose family. One chick is all they have. Could be preditors (otters take baby goslings) or could be a poor mating.

A nice panorama of the river looking North. Click on the picture for a larger view.

Several families of Geese. In the lead is the pair with only one gosling that we saw earlier. The other pairs have more goslings.

A Blue Heron calmly waiting for his meal to show up.

Our neighbors got a new boat. Sure looks like fun!

We went out for a drift on the morning of the 4th. The Anzac Amity was anchored in front of the island. What a beautiful ship!

Here you can see her anchor chain going down to the bottom and the extra anchor dangling. Good move captain, you never know when you may need it!

A nice closeup of the extra anchor. The flukes must be 6 feet (2 meters) tall!

An Osprey with a fish in his talons! Amazing!

A new otter family! Hard to count them here but it's a momma and three baby otters. Can't wait to get some more shots of these cuties!

My new pool. It was a crazy idea but it worked. I took a 30 by 50 foot blue tarp, folded it over a rope spanning the slip about 11 feet from the end of the slip. I then grommeted each penetration and screwed them all to new fascia boards I installed in the slip. A little filtering of the river water and a left over swim ladder from Great Ambition and we now have a 6 foot deep swimming pool! I may add some photos to show how I did it, but for now, enjoy the view!

A raccoon on the far bank (not that far away) fishing for crawdads and clams.

A momma and baby beaver. They are so cute!

A nice pano shot of the beach near Pier One. Click on the photo for a larger version.

We are really enjoying our pool! It's so deep, so clean and so cold! It will always be the same temperature as the river, topping out around 70 degrees F.

Momma otter on the way to rescue her runt that we have named "Squeaky". It seems like the runt ends up being the squeaky wheel and always calls to Mom to come rescue her. It's so cute though, and even the siblings join in the rescue operation.

A shot of most of the family later the same day.

One badass speedboat blasting down the river near sunset. You can see the driver pointing at us!

Buzzards circling overhead after one of their brothers found something. I think the trigger for circling is when one of their own is on the ground munching on something and they are looking for a way to "dive in" to partake as well.

One of the cradles I built for Darkwater Keep. It was discarded by the new owners and still stands here as a tribute to my ability to build things that last a long time.

An Osprey caught a fish and is eating it near our house.

I found an old beat up sailboard and found that I could use it to paddle around on. I have a couple of ideas to electrify this and cruise around with an electric motor.

We had an awesome sunset tonight.

Click on the panorama to see a bigger version of the shot.

We took a hike in the forest, lots of cotton woven into the Dogwoods.

Anytime I see someone in trouble I come to the rescue. This poor guy had been rowing against the tide and the wind from Frenchman's Bar. He gave me $5 for gas even though I tried to turn him down.

A cute shot of the Momma raccoon.

A reflection of clouds in my swimming pool.

A Bald Eagle near Southend. He stayed put, we didn't disturb him enough to make him leave.

A barge being pushed downstream by a tug. The North wind makes big rollers that the barge has to bash through to get where he's going.

A nice shot of the whole island.

A nice panorama of Caterpillar Island showing the Southend entrance to Fisherman's Slough. Click on the photo for a bigger version.

Sunset. I sure would have hated to miss this one!

A really awesome sunset! We debated whether we should go out and see this one. From Fisherman's Slough we can't really get a good indication of the how good the sunset is going to be. Good thing we made the right decsion!

A tug pushing a barge went by pretty close. Gave me a great shot!

The Alexandros Theos on her way back out to sea. I felt her surge when she came in and so I knew she was in port. Goodbye pretty lady!

It's Mothra! After getting back from taking the sunset shots above we were chatting with a neighbor in the dark near April's Stargazer Lillies when we noticed what looked like a hummingbird zipping from flower to flower. We've never seen hummingbirds at night but this thing moved like a hummingbird, darting from flower to flower as quick as lightning. I took some shots with my flash on and the secret is revealed, it's a moth that behaves exactly like a hummingbird!

After 6 years of living aboard, giving tours, carrying up to 14 people on board the floor of the living room of Great Ambition has started to flex some. It drives me crazy although I know it's probably structurally OK. I started trying to think of solutions but the best one I could come up with was to add a third hull down the center. You may remember that we have a mini-pontoon running partway up the center from the stern to float the stern higher with the two Yamaha 115HP engines. Noting that the computer room and the bedroom floors were still solid as a rock I decided to add a third full pontoon. A third full pontoon would give us four new features.

So once we had the money in the bank (now you know why I went back to work) we called Catamaran Cruisers and asked for prices. New pontoons price out at under $300 per foot (in 2013). We decided on a 45 foot long pontoon so that we could retain the swim ladder at the bow and put in our order. A month and a half later the pontoon was ready and even though I had priced trucking of the pontoon when I ordered it (around $4300 TN to OR), it was difficult to find someone to do it in the middle of summer. After trying three trucking brokers I went with a guy I found on UShip.com. I won't give you the link because frankly I was not very happy with the guy I got from there as you will see by the photos below. I finally got the pontoon delivered after a week of nailbiting and it was delivered to Schooner Creek Boat Works. Those guys at Schooner Creek are fantastic, which was a nice counterpoint to the guy who trucked it out here.

So, here we go, the pontoon loaded up on the trailer at Catamaran Cruisers manufacturing facility in Columbia Tennessee (it still tickles me that a boat on the Columbia River in Oregon/Washington was built in Columbia Tennessee).

Yes folks, that's a pickup with a 38 foot trailer to carry a 45 foot long pontoon.

After a week of phone calls about blowouts, new tires, bad wheel bearings and constant moans about bidding the job too low (his bid was only $250 less than a "real truck") our new pontoon arrived in pretty good shape.

Here is one thing that gave us pause, this is one of the three straps holding our $12,000 pontoon onto this trailer. Thank goodness I took out insurance on this job!

We took off for Schooner Creek Boat Works on Hayden Island early in the morning. We haven't left the slip for nearly a year so we were a little nervous. Here we are underway just off Frenchman's Bar.

Nearly there, we just have to get under the railroad bridge about a mile ahead and then into Grandma's Cove.

We made it! Perfect landing too!

However we weren't the first, this yacht beat us by just a few minutes. They are here for a survey prior to purchase. Oh well, we just have to wait till after lunch.

I took video of the lift. Since this was our second lift we were not as nervous as we were the first time.

Now that are out of the water the real work begins. The small pontoon is removed and set aside. We will try to use this at the marina for something.

No center pontoon anymore! They do sell Catamaran Cruisers like this.

And the new big pontoon is nearly ready for installation.

We also went back to the marina to see our home slip. Sure seems lonely without the Great Ambition there!

Major progress on our upgrade! Schooner Creek has the new pontoon in place and has all the bolts in place. Next step is tightening the bolts and zipping up the performance shield then painting the hulls.

Taken from the grounds of the Extended Stay America in Beaverton. It's nice that I can get decent pictures from in town but I would rather be taking this shot from the water!

She's nearly done! The new pontoon is installed, the performance shield is zipped up, the motors are serviced, the foam is sprayed in the subfloor cavity, only the bottom painting remains. We should be in the water mid-week!

And here is our old mini-pontoon at Kadow's. I'm sure Lloyd can find something to do with it at the marina, a party deck float, an extra dock float, or maybe a paddle board for a really fat person!

A long shot downriver. Boy, I really like this new video camera! That green marker between the two sailboats on the right side is about 3.5 miles away!

The boat is done. She's in the slings so the hull paint can dry overnight then back in the drink she goes tomorrow. And we go home, back to our amazing life on the Columbia with a stronger, tougher and more competent boat to take on this mighty river.

Before the haulout I left a glass of water on the pantry shelf. Little did I know that the whole job would be done with that glass of water not moving one centimeter!

I was right. Of course that is a redundant statement, but we noticed that running at our normal revs of 2300 RPM we were making 6.4 knots. Before the refit we made 5.0 knots at 2300 RPM. That short pontoon was slowing us down, but the longer one, even though it's wider and deeper is most importantly (for speed) longer. You'll notice I took my helm station decorating tips from Wash from the TV show FireFly.

Labor Day weekend so I came home from work and we headed to Southend for the weekend, or longer.

For some reason we cannot fathom Bald Eagles like to come to this point at sunset and just relax and watch the sun set! It's amazing!

A few hours later the river is just beautiful! A lone Blue Heron walks through the shallows looking for fish.

Trying out some nighttime shots with my new camera from Southend. I had to go to the beach for these as we were getting a parade of ships and tugs. To the left is the Moon and Jupiter, center-right is obviously Orion.

The Moon.

Having breakfast we watched as the Bald Eagle we named "Caesar" flew into a tree just 100 feet from us. You remember Caesar, he was watching the sunset on Friday night.

Our little slice of heaven.

On the one year anniversary of our son's wedding another couple is tying the knot on Sauvie Island. It's quite a shindig!

Complete with fireworks!

A walk on the beach. Fantastic!

The Yaquina is out dredging the channel.

A plane flying overhead.

The sunset petered out but still created a nice effect on the ridge in the West.

A tug pushing a barge. It's the Challenger.

Summer is nearly over, the fog is back.

A nice shot of the crescent moon.

The crescent Moon is near Venus tonight.

Not a bad sunset!

I got up early and took a stroll on the beach in the dark. Here is a nice shot of Orion, Jupiter and Pier One in the foreground.

Because the boat is so much higher I had to adjust the dock roller to raise it up by 4.5 inches. I just stacked 3 slabs of 2 by 8 by 8s and bolted the roller to them. I must have used 40 screws!

I really love this new camera!

In this shot look closely at the outer rim of the surface. That is not an artifact of the camera, you are seeing the roughness of the surface from craters and mountains on the moon on-edge. Incredible!

A Blue Heron fishing.

Sandhill Cranes, a very old breed of bird. Varieties of this bird have been around for 10 million years.

I came close to catching this guy right in the sunset. It's pretty tricky timing it to get him in the center.

Not a bad sunset.

Finally the Hericium ramosum is coming out!

A Bolete. I have not yet figured out which variety this is but I sure screwed it up bringing it home. Those rocks on the surface of the pores are grains of sand.

We went for a nice drift to watch the sunset. Here is a tug pushing this barge full of logs and an unseen barge full of pulp, basically chipped logs.

The closeup of the tug Mary B.

Gill net fisherman waiting for dark so he can deploy his nets. The fish can see the nets so they can only be used in the dark.

The Harvest Moon rising in the East.

The Hericium ramosum is back!

A family of Raccoons preparing to leave the island.

Here they come!

On a wet a blustery Sunday I took a walk in the forest looking for mushrooms. The fierce winds had knocked down a lot of limbs that had me constantly hacking my way through the forest with my machete.

But it paid off!

Sunset.

A sailboat towing a jet ski. For most real sailors this is sacrilege. Still it's a pretty picture.

We took the chainsaw into the forest to cut some of the larger logs that cross our paths. We cut them into rounds suitable for sitting so we crafted conversation pits near the tree falls in the depths of the forest.

Someone left a big mess on the island. I cleaned it up but I also noticed a treasure. Look at the bottom center of the photo.

A really nice Buck folding knife. I always wanted one of these. So while I had to pick up a bunch of trash I got a nice knife out of the deal!

It was a really nice day. I'm sure glad we live here!

Sunset, what a beauty!

I want to do an experiment. Let's see if I can train your eyes to look for geese.

Do you see them all?

The sunset looked promising but just before the color struck the rain moved it and took it all away. But I did get this nice dramatic shot of this Shaver tug heading back to Portland.

This camp has been here for at least a week. No one around but plenty of crap left behind. I wonder if they are coming back or if I will have to shove this stuff in the dumpster.

The water was so still it was like a mirror. So I let it be a mirror.

We had a bonfire on a Friday night after work. It was great because we had cut all the wood up the weekend before and it was still there when we got out to the island.

I leave my fires to burn overnight rather than putting them out. There is no danger of a forest fire with the weather like this, it was drizzling when we left the fire. The next day there was very little left. We got it going again and left it to burn out. We'll see what's left later.

We took a walk in the woods and found a lot of poisonous mushrooms. Some where huge!

And some were small.

Some were spooky looking.

Some were plate sized!

Here is all that is left of my bonfire that we started two days ago. Almost no mess at all. I like my way better than leaving a big pile of wet charcoal coated logs that no one can use later.

A ship towing a tug. You don't see this every day!

A Chinese junk.

My new camera does a really nice job most of the time but it doesn't seem to do a really good job with celestial objects other than the moon. Here is Jupiter and four moons, but good luck counting all four!

My camera in night mode. Yep, that is an owl in the near darkness of late twilight.

Geese!

We took the grueling quarter mile cruise to Southend. So pretty here. We will stay a few days then go back.

Sandhill Cranes cruising overhead.

With a full moon the whole river is lit up nicely. You can see the fog starting to rise out of the water. And that red light is Daymarker 32 blinking every two seconds. Just lucky I guess.

Blue Heron in the fog.

We found more Hericium ramosum! This bunch is in the crotch of this tree. I love eating fungus from crotches!

And we found another crop on a different log!

I shot the sun through the clouds with my Panasonic video camera on 72X zoom. You can clearly see three sunspots!

Here we are at Southend! God I love it here!

Wavelet on an otherwise nearly flat river. So calm and yet NOAA reports that at this time of year almost a million gallons per second flows by here.

Sunset.

The geese are blackening the sky. Here is a small fraction of a large wing flying past Venus in the evening sky.

Sunday afternoon, we are nearly ready to head back to the slip.

I caught this ship going up to Portland. My sister-in-law Michelle goes by Chell, so I can rightly say her ship came in!

A nice shot of the underside of Great Ambition. The third pontoon really boosts us up and yet allows water to pass by unlike a monohull.

The Moon on a Tuesday morning.

We're back at Southend! Why? Well, I got the ax over at Tektronix. Oh well, I can look for work from my laptop so why stay at the dock? My commuting days are over again for the time being.

The river. Sometimes it just defies description.

A spiderweb in the sunshine.

A tug in the fog.

The dredge ship Essayons is cruising around the area deepening the ship channel. Her track seems crazy but there is a method to her madness. She sucks up the sand out of the ship channel into her hold, takes if off to an area outside the channel and dumps it. It's quite a show!

Dusk. So pretty.

Sunset.

Dusk.

One of our four Fortress Anchors. This model weighs 14 pounds but can hold 8000 pounds. Fantastic anchors, so glad I chose them.

Geese flying by Venus.

A wet spider web. This was taken with Macro mode on my Panasonic HC-V210 video camera. Not bad!

The state of Washington releases pheasants this time of the year for the hunters to pursue. No hunter out here so they are fairly safe. This is a female.

Geese in the sunset light. This represents about 0.01% of the geese flying by this time of day.

Ho hum, another sunset!

We noticed a bright light across the river. Someone got a nice bonfire going. You can see them off to the right. This is about 1 KM away or over half a mile.

Oh Deer! We actually had our Honda generator running on the front deck and still this deer was not afraid of us. He came right out and let us take his picture, through the sliding glass door of course.

A ship dropped anchor right in front of us, the Arosa. So pretty.

The Arosa picked up a friend overnight. The Willamette Champion brought Double Hull, a refueling barge alongside. It's hard to make out but the next few shots should make you a believer.

In this view from MarineTraffic.com/AIS you can see Willamette Champion alongside the anchored Arosa. You can see us in our current position over on the right side, but remember, this is not real time. This satellite image was captured August of 2012.

Now in the daylight it's easy to see the refueling barge.

From the stern (taken from the beach on Caterpillar Island).

Now the job is done so Willamette Champion will now be on her way.

The water is pretty low! I can easily walk across the Southend Channel without getting my feet wet.

Great Ambition in our favorite spot.

We're back in the slip. It's pretty here too!

Now the sun is up and the fog has dissipated.

Dead calm river.

A Dog pounded into a log with a rope on it. I can free this and take that dog home with me!

A little video I made after removing the dog in the log, the log is now my target! I had a three flubs here, I left one in for you to see, but 25 sticks in a row isn't bad!

More knifeplay. Here I stuck my machete from a seated position on the first attempt.

Another one, this time a double flip from 20 feet away.

Lil' Ambition going home.

More H. ramosum!

Under the hull!

When we had our pool this summer we noticed what seemed to be two barrels on the bottom under the pool. So now that the pool is put away I am trying to raise the barrels. To do that we hook it with a grappling hook, tie it off to the dock at low tide and then wait.

After a few days of re-tightening at low tide the barrel came up!

In the forest we came across a place we named Southern Gate. And then we had a windstorm and Southern Gate is no more! Oh Southern Gate, we hardly knew ye!

Sunset!

I used the tide to pull up another barrel end. This time I got the top, you can see the plug near the grappling hook. I love using the tide to help me do the heavy lifting!

A shot looking up one of my favorite trees. So pretty with ferns growing out of it!

Southend channel. Heaven on earth.

With everything wet it's time to burn off some of our brush piles. This is mostly Blackberry brush we have cut in one of our favorite meadows. If it takes over it makes the meadow unusable by campers and day trippers.

Fisherman's Slough. Such a nice place to live.

Even more Tooth Fungus! This stuff seems to be nearly everywhere, I keep finding new clusters of it. Of course that is going to happen when you go into new areas of the forest.

After cleaning it looks so nice! The great thing about this stuff is that animals and insects leave it alone, as do most people. Unlike some other edible fungus (Boletes come to mind) H. ramosum remains virgin until it succumbs to another fungus which usually takes weeks to take root on the fruiting bodies.

Two ships anchored in front of the island. At the time there were two more anchored in front of Frenchman's Bar, putting four ships within view of the island. Rather unusual.

I expect that some people have an issue with me leaving my bonfires to burn overnight rather than extinguishing them before I leave. Well, here is why I do that. First a picture of someone else's fire that they covered in sand (and presumably urinated on) before they left.

And one of my old bonfires. You can tell that mine leaves a lot less debris and half-burnt wood.

A really pretty fruiting body of H. ramosum growing out of a knot in an old dead tree.

I've been practicing throwing my Gerber machete. I've gotten really good at throwing it from the blade end, but that requires wearing a glove as the blade doubles as a very aggressive saw and so both sides of the blade are very sharp. But now I'm working on throwing from the handle which is trickier because it requires the machete to go through a full 360 degree flip which "throws" off my natural throwing distance. Here are four attempts in a row. Not too bad!

Another really nice sunset.

And another nice sunset!

A fleck of mica aka Fools Gold on the beach reflecting the sunset.

A water droplet catching the sunset.

Sand Hill Cranes flying in the dusky sky.

After the sun went down the clouds really lit up.

The ship at the North end of the island.

A ship coming upstream. That bulbous bow creates a pretty impress bow wave!

The perfect melding of color. The fall colors are nice but it's especially important to capture them during Golden Hour, right near sunset.

Sunset. Rather boring but still pretty.

A nice shot of the tug, Patricia Ann in the dusky light of twilight. Interestingly I'm friends with a gal named Patricia Pan who also volunteers at the library. After a while I got an epiphany, I used GraphicConverter to copy the PA from PAtricia and paste it over the AN in ANN, converting the tugs name to Patricia Pan. That's one reason I take so many pictures, you can't have enough raw material when your brain is as twisted as mine.

Sunrise on a cold morning.

Hiking through the forest on the island right across from our home slip we came across a Hooter who has been hooting at us nearly every evening. This is a Spotted Owl, famous (or infamous) for decimating the logging industry in the Northwest via the Endangered Species Act. Whatever his political bent, he's a beauty! (This photo was taken by my wife who crept up on him, the rest by me)

A bunch of videos! I'm finally getting the hang of this video camera, so enjoy!

We got a night aboard Tom and Jerry, one of a fleet of Christmas Ships. If you ever get a chance to catch a ride aboard a Christmas Ship, dive right in!

Jenny is a real life paddlewheel powered boat. Her top speed is limited sometimes but it's not for lack of trying!

See "The Goose" on our bow? That's Branch Office on the left and Jenny on the right.

A nice shot of a Bufflehead Duck.

A Great Heron with a Pied Bill Grebe in the foreground. So beautiful, both of them.

A beautiful foggy beach.

The Kelley Point heading off to visit a ship.

Three cups of water. River, tap and drinking water. The lovely thing about living on the water is the abundance of water we can use in any form we like.

A pair of barges pushed by tugs.

The frost on Lil' Ambition taken in Macro mode.

A nice shot of the sunny beach.

People cleaning the beach. My counterparts at Frenchman's Bar.

A ship parked off the island.

Sunset.

In winter we still get red and green, just from different sources. The Dogwoods are almost florescent and the moss on the trees is so bright!

I went with LED holiday lights and they are just great! They give a nice light, and you can change the tint by adding strings with other colors. Here I have a string of Cool White LEDs and a string of Warm White LEDs with a multi-color string. AND I can power all350 lights with a super small 12VDC to 120VAC inverter and only draw 1 Amp at 12VDC.

A Pied Bill Grebe with a big fish!

A ship going by in the fog, wow, that is loud!

I'm walking down the beach and along comes a Bald Eagle. Now, he can go anywhere he wants but this time he flew right over me!

A rather dangerous cruise along a wingdam north of the island.

One reason catamarans are safer than monohulls. A Catamaran Cruiser won't sink because the engines are not inside the hulls, they are outboards and there is no way for water to get into your hulls on a catamaran.

Sunset on Christmas Day.

The river with no ships today! There were two here yesterday, but today they are in port or gone!

A Bald Eagle right across the channel from our house.

A doe and her two fawns. Notice that one fawn is laying her chin on mom's back as she gazes across the slough.

The view out the Port side living room window. What a great view!

New mod to the houseboat. While our tap water is drinkable, the water from my watermaker is much cleaner, even though it comes out of the river. We have been decanting it from 2 liter bottles up till now. But then we bought a little marine hand pump and plumbed it to a pickup tube for a 5 gallon water bottle. Now we just pump when we want 99.9997% pure water and with two jugs we just swap when one goes empty and run the watermaker into the empty one at our next opportunity.

We decided to start the New Year with bonfire. This really nice Douglas Fir log has been sitting here for two years so it's pretty dry and burned well, as you will see.

The first Sea Lion of the new year!

The Yf and her crazy crooked fire poking stick.

My dinghy on anchor.

Day two of the bonfire. There were plenty of hot coals left from overnight so here I am trying to finish off the scraps left.

The Yf with her crazy stick again.

Our favorite tug, Nancy Ann

We went back to the slip before the sunset so we missed the best shots, but this will have to do.

Letting the fire burn overnight resulted in almost no debris.

An interesting shot that has been mirrored to look like it's a shot of the sky, but it's not, it's a shot of the water.

A pair of Bald Eagles in a tree very close to us.

Snow Geese flying past the moon.

Sunset.

The same pair of Bald Eagles in a different tree.

The same pair in a tree right across from us.

A nice shot of a bright, cloudy sky down the slough.

Our pair of Bald Eagles. A few minutes after this shot was taken, the bird on the left mounted the bird on the right. That makes the one on the left the male, and now you can see what's going though his mind. He's got that glint in his eye!

Ice is forming on the river in the cold (28F) temps.

Sun sparkles in the slough.

My old living room chair broke a weld, third time, so we got rid of it. In its place we got a nice recliner. You have to make sure everything you buy can fit through the door (25" Max) but this one did! So comfy!

Sunrise

While taking a shot of the sunrise (above) and I heard the eagle pair chittering away off to the North.

Nice shot of us in the slip.

We got a new Mr. Heater. I really like the steerable heads, allows us to heat our chairs equally.

One of our rest stops in the forest.

A nice duck feather on the beach.

For this walk we let Lil' Ambition hang on the Anchor Buddy.

A pair of Bald Eagles.

The slough at sunrise.

A very cold Blue Heron. It's 19F out there!

Southend.

It is just about to snow, but before that we had ice in the slough. We're ready, bring on Global Warming!

Some pictures of the snow taken by my wife April.

We had to shovel the snow off the docks several times. It didn't last!

The channel looks nice!

Deep snow!

The Blue Heron is even more unhappy but at least he can stand on the ice to get the fishies.

We took a cruise in Lil' Ambition after I got the steering unfrozen. First we got some video of the Kadow's using the water cannon to blast the snow off the roofs of the covered moorages.

Now off to Southend. There sure is a lot of ice here! And this boat makes a great Ice Breaker!

A nice shot of Lloyd Kadows world famous Water Cannon tower for blasting snow off the roofs of the moorage. He's saved the moorage several times over with this contraption.

Another way to blast the snow off the roofs. Go up with a fire nozzle with a gas-powered pump giving you the water.

A young otter calls out to her mother.

A duck we have never identified before, Ring Necked Ducks.

A young Bald Eagle has been haunting the area. Not a great shot, but he's rather reclusive.

I took a walk on the island after the snow stopped falling. First we make it to an area in the woods we call The Commons.

The deer have been using my trails like crazy!

It dredging time again. Only two months out of the year Fazio Brothers is allowed to dredge for sand.

A nice shot of a ship anchored out in the river.

An F-15 making his approach to PDX airport.

A nice shot of our living room. Its a little small but larger than some places we have lived, like Navy barracks or dorm rooms. Besides, it's all location, location, location!

A powerful storm making its way across Sauvie Island.

A neighbor puts out bird food but someone else is enjoying it!

While we were hiking in the forest a Bald Eagle flew over. This situation can be a problem for many cameras because the Auto-Focus sometimes preferentially focuses on nearer objects. However this camera seems to understand that while panning on a moving object it should ignore things in the foreground that are speeding by its frame.

As morning started to break I ran up to the top of the ramp to catch the sunrise over Shillapoo Wildlife Refuge. Here the Canadian Geese are coming in for a landing in the firelight.

Mount Hood in the firelight.

The upstream neighbor's dock broke up and was swept downstream towards us. Tuffy helped me get it out of harms way but it was tricky. You might wonder why I'm pushing the dock with the stern of the dinghy but that is the best way to go. The motor is in direct contact with the dock and if I used the bow to try to push the dingy would just crawl over the dock and then my dinghy would be stuck on top of it.

The juvenile Bald Eagle that has been haunting us lately is growing into adulthood. Notice how his head is turning white.

I finally figured out how to get good images of celestial objects with this camera. Night mode and manual focus. Now if I could take these shots on dry land instead of a constantly shifting dock I might get some really great pix. First up, Jupiter and three of its moons.

Orion's Sword featuring the Orion Nebula.

The Pleiades, Subaru in Japanese.

A paddling of Greater Scaups in the sunshine. I just love this camera and the way the lenses make this wonderful star pattern in the sun sparkle shots.

I saw a glimmer of color in the Eastern sky, so I walked up to the parking lot and caught these photos of the sunrise. First, some really nice photos of Mount Hood.

The "big picture" across Shillapoo Wildlife Refuge. It's nice to live right across from a wildlife refuge, it's not likely that anyone will build a factory or shopping mall here, especially give the propensity for this area to flood.

The river is up quite a bit, getting close to the level back in June of 2011.

I tweaked a popular Facebook post that was going around about living in the country in a big cabin. I don't want a big cabin, I love being able to change the view out the window and the only way to do that from a cabin is to use a chainsaw. I just fire up my engines and take a short trip and my view is radically different.

With the water so high we can now see Felida Moorage from the road. Here you can see the roofs of several floating homes over in Lake River. We pass these homes when we go to Vancouver Lake but now we can see them from 1.9 miles away.

Thanks to Google Maps I can show you the path through which the above photo was taken. Again, that line is 1.9 miles long. This is quite a camera.

A 5 foot by 8 foot plastic dock section was drifting by from somewhere upstream so I grabbed it. It had a large gash in it and was waterlogged. I drained the water out and because it is made of Polyethylene I was able to weld the gash closed using a propane torch and plastic ice cream buckets cut up into small pieces. Now, what to do with it...

Sunset. The water is so high that there is no beach left. It will come back, with new treasures uncovered by the scrubbing action of the water.

The sunrise looked good but the only really good shot I got was this one. Canadian Geese coming in to land with Mount Hood in the background.

After thinking about it I decided to turn the dock section I found into a raft for my grandkids. I removed the aluminum frame and bolted on pieces of 2X8 pressure treated wood on for the transom and sideboards.

With the transom fully supported with 5" lag bolts, sideboards with corner braces and screws I attached a 17 lb. thrust trolling motor and screwed a battery box to the transom so it wouldn't go anywhere. I also attached four galvanized cleats to the four corners to make it easier to tie up to the dock.

It works! I was able to drive upstream against the strong current and it floats pretty high even with me on board. The math says it should take 1000 pounds to sink it, so I'm not worried about putting my three little grandkids on it. They will have a great time with this thing!

With the high water comes debris from upstream. Here we go with another round of bonfires to purge all this crap from the beach at Pier One.

The log that captured all that debris makes a pretty good dock, if you can balance that is.

Over the years the sand on the beach erodes and uncovers misdeeds done years ago. Burying your trash on MY island is not cool. I'm pretty sure I know who did this, and he knows that I know. Pigs...

We finally left the slip and headed for Vancouver Lake. We were really interested in trying out the new third pontoon against a ship wake. We got our chance and here is a video that shows how we did. No water on the front deck, I love that!

We pass through Ridgefield, WA on our way to Vancouver Lake up Lake River.

A dead boat washed up on the shore in Lake River.

You may remember that I captured this photo of Felida Moorage from Kadow's Marina. This photo was made possible by the high water levels lifting the floating homes above Shillapoo Wildlife Refuge and by the incredible zoom capability of my Panasonic video camera.

And as we passed by Felida Moorage we found the homes above.

Vancouver Lake with the island on the right

The view from the Northeast cove in Vancouver Lake.

The weather was so variable that our first, and only day on Vancouver Lake was less like a vacation and more like an endurance contest. With a South wind blowing we tried anchoring on the North side of the island, but the wind was shifty so none of the coves on the North side of the island were safe. So we drove across the lake, into the wind and whitecaps. Thank goodness for the new pontoon which allowed us to bash through the waves without taking water over the bow. In the South Cove we were totally shielded from the wind. Whew! But then while eating dinner the wind shifted and came out of the North! Again, pulled up all the anchors, drove across the lake in roaring winds and pounding whitecaps over to the island where we stayed in our favorite Southeast cove. We were safe overnight, but then the wind started coming up out of the West and we said, time to go!

Before we left Vancouver Lake we found a Bald Eagle chittering at us from the island.

On our way home we pass Felida Moorage. It looks like a nice place, but a major railroad corridor passes by so day and night freight and passenger trains come by and honk at the crossing to the parking lot for the moorage.

Coming into the slip with very fast current flowing I broke the roller off the dock. The good news is that there was no damage to the boat and I was able to park by going upstream, spinning 90 degrees and then drifting down until we got lined up with the slip. Then I powered in and landed perfectly with some help from a neighbor.

I rebuilt the dock roller mounting with four 8" lag bolts instead of just two 6" lag bolts and I backed it with a 4"X8" block of wood under the dock tied into the dock framing. It's much tougher now and should handle anything now.

Another thing that forced us home is that the LP furnace was misbehaving during our whole trip, which meant we would be cold all the time we were away from the slip. Once we got home I started troubleshooting using some of the clues I had from previous outings. One thing that has always bothered me is that the furnace did not work well when we were underway. I suspected that it was due to vibration from the engines chattering the contacts on the thermostat. It turns out that was right, but it wasn't the thermostat contacts but the on/off switch built into the Suburban factory installed thermostat. I decided to replace the Suburban mechanical thermostat with a Honeywell programmable thermostat which does not use mechanical contacts at all. Now the furnace works like a champ, it has never worked this well! If you own an RV or houseboat that uses a Suburban thermostat get rid of it and buy a Honeywell electronic thermostat! Don't worry about the wiring, just connect the two wires from the furnace to the Rh and W terminals and you are good to go!

A mating pair of Wood Ducks. The female wouldn't win any beauty contests against the male but she's meant to blend into the environment more because she's the one who makes the chicks while the male attracts the predators away.

During our trip to Vancouver Lake I took this video to see how we do while underway since getting the third pontoon added. A very revealing video!

The leaves are coming back!

A nice shot of the beach down by Southend.

My watermaker quit working. I always check the filters first and sure enough, the 2 Micron Carbon filter is so clogged it was crushed by the pump!

I took a ride on my scooter to Vancouver Lake and around the area. First up, what used to be just a dirt parking lot near the river has been turned into a park across the river from the Willamette River pouring into the Columbia.

The Willamette River with the grain terminal loading a ship bound for Asia.

This used to be just a dirt pull-out along the road. Now it's a proper park with a gate and everything. There's my scooter all alone.

Now over to Vancouver Lake. This is the shoreline, so pretty!

Along the road that used to be used as a racetrack at Vancouver Lake Park. They have since put in speed bumps to discourage racing.

Sunset April 1st. So pretty!

A hike in the forest to one of our favorite rest stops. Note the bench in the background.

My fancy bench joint carved with my machete.

A really nice tree fall flattens all the surrounding brush. We call this area Mattress World because there is a mattress here that washed up onto the island back in 1996 when the big flood hit.

It's better to have False Morels than no morals at all.

I had so much fun putting in the new thermostat for the Propane furnace that I decided to use a Honeywell electronic programmable thermostat for the electric heat.

A programmable thermostat won't switch 120V @ 15Amps so I used a Crydom electronic relay to do the actual switching of the power from the thermostat using 12V from the house battery bank.

I picked up a helm chair from Walmart and added a shelf to make a mini Nav station for my laptop, so now I have a proper helm station!

The greenery is really coming in!

And looking North we can see the sun setting on the beach at the other end of the island.

We found a new material for dock edging. It's called Eco Border. It's meant for edging gardens in yards but it's made from recycled tires and contains no metal. It has a very spongy feeling but seems pretty tough so far. And it's available at Lowes for about $8.00.

The Osprey are back!

And right away they start getting frisky. This pair completed the act just seconds before this shot.

A new boat is in the slough, this is a one-off custom Catamaran sailboat with the mast down on the roof. It's fiberglass and seems very solidly built. It could be an interesting vessel to take on the ocean, but I will let someone else give this a try.

I got some pretty good shots of the lunar eclipse. Not bad even though they were taken from a dock!

With strong winds out of the North I decided to fix our front tie up. I used an old aluminum wheel from a dead chaise lounge I recycled. I cut the tire off, wrapped the metal with duct tape and bolted it to the dock with a washer and a poly cover. Now the boat stays close to the dock but still has lots of room to stretch if it needs to.

A Wood Duck at long range. They are very reclusive. The ones who are still alive are anyway!

Osprey dining on sashimi. Of course, that's what they eat, pretty much 100% of the time. Hold the wasabi though.

I started a new experiment. The world is all a'Twitter with Global Warming and I have come up with multiple ways of living on Venus, so I need a life-form that can convert pure CO2 into oxygen. I thought this would be a long process but it happened so fast! I put some river water, algae and moss into a bottle of store brand carbonated water. I thought 100% CO2 atmosphere would kill everything but instead I have living chlorophyl making oxygen!

I decided to try a new trick with my watermaker. I added a 0.5 micron filter to the brine side of the Reverse Osmosis unit and tested it. It looks pretty good! Now, which is the drinking water and which is the "house" water for washing, bathing, etc.

I'll tell you in a second. Which is which? Drinking at 4ppm Total Dissolved Solids, or Brine at 100ppm TDS?

In both photos the drinking water is on the right, house water is on the left.

I think this is a yearly event. Take a look, same as last year about this time. These guys race from Frenchman's Bar, North to the end of Caterpillar Island, back up Fisherman's Slough then out into the Columbia again and back around the island a few times. I lost count!

Here is the rewiring I did on the watermaker to make it bypass the RO (or so I thought) and make just house water. House water is water for the kitchen sink, bathroom sink, shower, toilet, and laundry center. House water can be drunk, but it is lower quality than drinking water. But of course what happened was that the watermaker now makes a lot of both kinds of water at once. So now it has two speeds, 3.5 to 1 (3.5 gallons of house water to one gallon of drinking water) and 25 to 1. So on laundry day we make water on the 25 to 1 setting, otherwise we make water on the lower setting.

The water is pretty high so there is only one place on the Southend to get to the shore, and this is it.

Looking South just a few seconds after the last photo.

Next I went into the forest and went to a rest area we created called Southern Gate.

Back at the house I got a shot of the Venutian Life experiment. This is 9 days later and still the moss is creating oxygen.

Sunrise.

A nice shot of one of the Hummingbirds that now visit our feeders.

A goose family goes by. How many chicks will die from predators?

A TRUE Morel. Up till now all I have seen are False Morels.

Nice shot in the forest.

Scott's Broom in bloom. If the river comes up high enough, it will kill this plant. And then when it has dried out again it makes a great fire starter.

We came across this Shaggy Mane mushroom. If we had found this mushroom a few days earlier we could have eaten it but here you can see it's turning inky.

Here I have dissected it and now we wait to see if it is a real Shaggy Mane. Should only take a few hours.

This WAS a Shaggy Mane. It's the only way I know to prove a mushroom is a Shaggy Mane. Pick it and watch it degrade over a few hours into ink. But now if I find another mushroom that looks like that growing out of the ground (not wood) then it is a Shaggy Mane and I can eat it.

I took a walk across Shillapoo Wildlife Refuge and later tracked it on Google Earth. Not a bad hike. Note that I have the local fruit trees saved on my Google Earth. I like picking fruit from these wild trees.

A pretty pond in the wildlife refuge.

Vancouver Lake during my hike. Yeah, it was a little wet.

The Shaggy Mane the next day.

The front deck with sunshade deployed. Moving the sunshades from the RADAR arch to the front and back decks was the smartest move I have made lately. It turns both of these places into actual rooms!

The Moon. I swear I did nothing to the photo. The blue color came from the Moon itself.

We finally got away and went to Southend! So lovely here.

Our view off the front deck.

A Chinook Salmon looking for a place to die.

I'm using the log at Pier One as a dock. You gotta have good balance!

A ship parked in front of us.

A Bald Eagle perched near us on the island.

The ship, a tug and the full moon.

The same shot a few hours later.

Continued...