Our anchor in the sand. Note that the water is pretty darn clean!
We brought in a couple of wild Canadian Geese with saltine crackers. They reliably show up every day and only take food from us.
Our camp at Southern Gate.
Campers on the island near Pier One.
Sunset through the trees.
I took a hike out in Shillapoo Wildlife Refuge all the way over to Vancouver Lake. This route comes out to about 5 miles. It sure is nice out here!
It's Fleet Week in Portland for the Rose Festival and here come the Navy ships. First the Canadian Navy ship, Oriole.
Now the US Coast Guard Cutty Hunk.
And the US Coast Guard Alert.
Now a Navy ship!
Sunrise off the stern at Southend.
The wife swimming in the rip-roaring Columbia. We have three floats out because if she loses her grip and has nothing to float on, it's a long way to shore and with the current she'll be miles downstream before she made it to the shore.
We noted this Osprey carrying a load of aquatic plants back to the nest. I do know they are nesting and raising young. Perhaps this is nest bedding.
A MacGregor 19, a very rare boat, out sailing in the sparkles.
A fawn walking the beach with her mother. So cute!
A Bald Eagle on the beach. This is a juvenile bird, he's not completely grown up yet.
He's got a fish!
Chowing down!
The Doe and her Fawns are back.
Back in the slip and there's an Otter feasting on something over on the island.
On our way to Vancouver Lake again! Along Lake River we come across this beautiful Bald Eagle.
Out on the front deck with coffee on Vancouver Lake.
From the island in Vancouver Lake you can see Great Ambition way off in the distance.
Great Herons around the North shore of Vancouver Lake. They are far more gregarious than Blue Herons who don't like each other's company very much.
A large Beaver Den on the South side of Vancouver Lake, not too far where we spent three weeks in 2011.
Great Ambition snuggled up in the North cove of Vancouver Lake.
For years this old dock has been washed up on this shore. It's very small, but it makes a nice place to hang out and watch the lake from the shade.
On our way back down Lake River and home. Lots of things on the calendar, so back to civilization we go.
Our adolescent Bald Eagle is still here. He must have been waiting for us!
A really cool homemade catamaran! There are some clever folks out there!
I cruised over to Vancouver Lake to catch the sunrise. Notice the fish cruising the shallows in the lake? I imagine the fishing is pretty good here!
Sunrise zoomed.
Sunrise with the Moon, Venus and Jupiter showing us the plane of the solar system. This was taken right across the road from the marina across Shillapoo Wildlife Refuge.
Our Gal lost her Starboard propellor a few months ago when the water was high. Now that the water is low I looked around and found it under Wings. He must have lost the prop nut and then as he left his slip he put the Starboard engine in reverse to rotate the bow out away from the dock. When that happened, the prop spun off and landed on the bottom. This happened to me when I was 16 years old so I had a pretty good idea I could find this prop.
I was able to retrieve it and return it to its rightful owner. He had already replaced it, but it's always nice to have a spare!
I came across a very dangerous log submerged in the channel. I pulled it up with my dinghy, then took it over to Tuffy to lift it out of the water.
The first crop of Hericium ramosum has blossomed. This tree fell just this year. The fungus must be programmed to start blooming when the tree falls so that it gets out into the forest before the whole tree rots away.
With the water so low it's time to start clearing debris out of the water. Here is a barrel that I snagged with my grappling hook. Now I just tie it off on a cleat and wait for the tide to come in. The barrel will come up with no effort on my part.
Here are two other barrels that I dragged up the same way. Hook it, tie it off on the dock and wait for the tide to bring it up. Piece of cake!
And here is the barrel I hooked above!
Another barrel I pulled up.
Three barrels to take up to the dumpster.
It's been months since I have had a bonfire, and this pile of logs needs to be burned. I used my come-along and Peavey to arrange the logs together so they would burn. It's going to be an impressive fire!
Yes, it was a big fire!
I got some photos of the Lunar Eclipse. Here is how it started.
In this shot you can actually see the cloud patterns on the earth projected onto the surface of the Moon.
The slough is changing as winter encroaches.
The Commons deep in the forest. A nice place to sit back and listen to the birds in the forest.
The state of Washington is rebuilding Langsdorf boat ramp just a half mile North of the marina. In this shot they have removed the old ramp and re-graded the ramp bed.
This is the stuff they are going to put down near the ramp.
Now they are grading the land underwater.
Now the ramp is in, just 3 days later
Now the pile driving crane is here. It took them some time to get in, the water was really shallow so they stood offshore of Fisherman's Slough for a while until the tide came in.
But they finally made it to the ramp!
One of the Pheasants released for the hunters. They are pen raised so they don't have a lot of fear of humans.
Now this is really cool! For the last two years on Google Maps we have been at Southend. But it appears that the satellite caught us at Southend again this last August somewhere from the 5th to the 10th. Quite a coincidence!
In preparation for winter I am adding heat to the watermaker to make sure it does not freeze. I used to winterize it every time it got cold, but that solution is fraught with danger. Here I added a 12V incandescent light with a 35 degree F bi-metalic switch. That way when the temperature gets down to 35F or lower, the light will come on and warm up this compartment to 45F when the switch will turn the light off. So now this watermaker compartment which is encased in foam insulation will be thermostatically controlled to between 35F and 45F so nothing will freeze.
These two Bald Eagles were hanging out up by the boat ramp, but with all the commotion and construction they moved over to Kadow's for some peace and quiet!
The new dock is in at the Langsdorf Ramp a half mile down the channel and I took the opportunity to be the first boat docked to the new dock!
I took a long walk on the island and caught this shot of the wingdam near the North end of the island.
Nice shot of the view off our front deck.
We harvested 5 pounds of H. ramosum, an edible fungus. We cleaned it up in preparation for drying.
A neighbor who can only get around by electric scooter needed a new ramp for his front door. I built this one for him that actually telescopes for when the water is really low. The previous ramp was like climbing the Matterhorn when the water was low, but this one can be extended so it's not as steep.
Nice shot of the slough.
We dried the H. ramosum in the oven and came up with 4 pounds of fungus reduced to a small bottle of very concentrated fine power. This is perfect for soups, gravies, meatloaf, all kinds of things where you might use mushrooms. Drying this fungus is the only way to preserve it. If you freeze it, when defrosted it will be decompose into a nasty goo. Drying is the only way to go!
Proof that we are not Dock Rats! Google has captured us at the dock only once in the last 6 years!
The Langsdorf Landing boat ramp is completely done.
I figured out a way to keep my watermaker system from freezing when the cold weather hits. I added a Normally Open (NO) valve across the pump so that when the pump is ON, the valve is closed, allowing the pump to work normally. But when the pump turns off, the valve opens, bypassing the one-way valves in the pump and allowing gravity to work to drain all the water from the watermaker system. Pretty clever!
A Blue Heron in the sun.
Winter is here, the fog moves in.
Since adding the third pontoon I've found a way to hide my dinghy from the rain. There is now enough room under the front deck to park the dinghy there. No more having to bail out the dinghy after a rain!
View from the front.
A Paraplane flies by.
Pied Bill Grebe.
A view out the living room window. Cozy place, no?
Just weeks after the boat ramp was completed this moron crashed his car on the road above the boat ramp parking lot. One of the guys running the grader in the parking lot during construction told me "I don't know why I'm doing this, the damn kids are just going to screw it up in no time." How right he was!
Mount Saint Helens behind a cool looking tree in Shillapoo Wildlife Refuge.
A small pond in Shillapoo Wildlife Refuge
A couple canoeing down the slough.
The Moon hiding in the forest on the island.
We had a bad storm that knocked out power for almost three days. We did fine with all our onboard resources but the dock sure was dark.
The next night the power was on. Quite a difference!
A ship parked in front of the island, Blue Ocean shot through the trees on the island. In the above pictures you can see him parked out there.
Shot of our slip from the north.
Our slip as seen from the south.
I'm always looking for floatation barrels. Wrestling them into the boat is always the hard part, but a catamaran solves that!
The marina upstream of us is cleaning up a bunch of debris that has been accumulating.
More styrofoam floats! This time I had my dinghy, so I had to wrestle them into the boat and then share the space with them.
A nice shot of Oregon across the river.
This happens every time the power goes out. A boat has been pumping its bilge every so often, but the battery gets charged from the shore power so no worries. Then the power goes out and the battery goes dead trying to keep the boat afloat. Then the boat goes down because the bilge pump has run out of power. We caught Vivian May just before she went all the way down, and luckily she had no fuel in her, but it wasn't worth it to keep her in the water. The owner got her hauled out to avoid future problems. This is the biggest downside to a Monohull. One little leak and you are underwater!
I got a new camera for Christmas, a Panasonic HC-V550. Here is the first shot of a sunset off the front deck.
A shot of the moon.
A pair of Blue Herons in the tree across from our slip.
A pair of Bald Eagles in a tree down the slough.
A poor dead duck washed up on the beach.
With the rain came high water, and with high water comes wood debris from upstream.
Mount Saint Helens.
Mount Adams.
Mount Hood.
The Moon.
A Bald Eagle in a tree.
A Scaup hanging out behind our house.
I took a cruise out to the front of the island. On the way I passed Balum's Pole.
Out on the island you could see the fog advance and retreat as it pleased.
A pair of Bald Eagles in a tree near the marina.
The Moon.
The Sun shot through the fog. Nice sunspot.
Sunrise over Mount Hood across Shillapoo Wildlife Refuge.
A Bald Eagle sitting in a tree along with his mate across the channel from our slip.
A Raccoon walking the beach looking for breakfast.
The river.
A flying fish landed in the forest! Of course there are no flying fish in the Columbia. This was a good sized fish, about 3 pounds, and about 18 inches long. So how did it get here? Looking closely I could see the puncture marks from a Bald Eagle's talons. For some reason, maybe clumsiness the eagle must have dropped the fish. Which eagle? Check the video from the previous day, that eagle!
I'm getting pretty good with this Gerber Machete. 58 sticks in 1 minute 45 seconds.
The Sun on a cloudy morning. Note the sunspots in the center of the Sun.
The slough on a sunny day.
The big concrete home on Sauvie Island is getting some more work done. Perhaps a new building?
A boat goes out in the fog.
The density of the fog waxes and wanes.
The hummingbirds were out so I got a few shots.
We took Lil' Ambition to Southend to take a walk on the island.
I did a little machete throwing on the beach.
The fog causes the spider webs to collect water droplets. We call them Fairy Hammocks.
The Moon. This new camera with 90X zoom does a really fantastic job!
A few neighbors are getting floats put under their houses. This boat will do the work at around $130 per 800 pound float, or about $0.16 per pound. Pretty good!
Later in the day the fog lifted and the sun came out. So lovely!
Another moon shot the next day. Wow, this camera is amazing. I actually had to zoom out a little to get the whole moon in the shot.
I've worked on my double flip throws. This is about a 30 foot throw. I missed a lot, but I actually stuck 17 of them! Of course I won't make you sit through the misses.
A Bald Eagle watching over the marina. He stayed put while I took his picture, but I was not foolish enough to believe that he was unaware of me taking his picture.
A nice sunny day, perfect for relaxing on the front deck.
Jupiter and her 4 Galilean moons. Taken with my Panasonic 90X zoom video camera in Manual Focus mode.
Sunset from the front deck.
I took a break from working and took a walk on the island. The Fazio Brothers dredge was out, but had his dredge head out of the water. Look at the very front, you can see the spiral head sticking out the front.
And here comes the Glacier gravel barge coming up from Scappoose to Portland.
Crossing the island through the forest I found a path to get this shot of the Langsdorf Landing boat ramp. They sure did a nice job.
The Scaups have been hanging out in front of our houseboat. They don't seem bothered by our daily activities, but part of the reason for that is that all the windows are one way glass.
We can see them, but they can't see us!
A shot of the moon with my new Panasonic HC-V550 with 90X zoom. Pretty impressive!
The Smelt run is progressing nicely. It's been years since we have seen them wash up on the beach like this.
A nice walk on the beach enjoying the sun. The warm sun...
A shot of the Moon the next night.
Bad people make a mess on the island, and what a shame because it's a beautiful place!
I picked up all their trash and was rewarded with a free folding knife they left behind!
But there was another group camping out here and they left nothing but footprints. Very nice guys, you are welcome back anytime.
Another moon shot.
Sunrise comes and the levee casts a shadow on the Red Dogwood which still has not started sprouting.
I don't know why my camera tinted this shot blue, but I like it, so I boosted the saturation a bit. Beautiful!
Another moon shot. I really like this camera!
Great White Herons are moving in at the south end of the island. Unlike the Blue Herons, they are very gregarious.
The sunrise was OK, but the pink light it cast on the clouds near the moon was something to behold.
Several Wood Ducks came by. I can't open the front door to get a pic otherwise they will get scared and fly away so I shot this one through the glass of the front sliding glass door. Not too bad!
The Great White Herons loitering at the south end of Fisherman's Slough.
MarineTraffic.com has a new feature. Animated Tracking. Here I track Indiana Highway up the Columbia from the Pacific Ocean.
A Great White Heron.
Sunset mode on this camera seems to turn the purple up.
I caught a Sealion diving, but I had not changed the mode from Sunset mode so it looks a bit purple.
Sandhill Cranes approaching with Mount Hood in the background.
Sunrise over Shillapoo Wildlife Refuge with Canadian Geese flying in.
A short movie of the above scene.
Spring is almost here! The leaves are starting to bud.
The plaque at Langsdorf Landing boat ramp.
Sunset on the river.
Spring is here!
The moochers are back. They actually remembered our boat from our time out at Southend last May and came looking for us. Of course we obliged them.
The Gander tried again to land on our BBQ but this time he missed!
The geese show up again the next day at 8AM looking for food.
After a nice meal of cracked corn, a nap is in order.
Fog on the slough, reminds me of a song by Deep Purple.
Finally it's gotten nice!
And today it's even better!
I finally decided to use the 18 foot long rough 2*12 and a 16 foot long 4*6 to build a wall for this summer's swimming pool. With this setup I can use a $30 tarp to make a swimming pool here like I did in 2013. But then I had to use a $200, 30*50 foot tarp, this time I can use a 20*30 foot tarp which is a lot less expensive!
An interesting shot of a Beaver ear, post-mortem of course.
The same Beaver's teeth.
Sunset.
A shot of the slough in the evening.
A big Beaver on the bank behind our house.
Since the Gander got his hot foot from the BBQ he now sits on the solar panel above the front deck waiting to be fed.
The Moon.
The Ospreys have returned!
Osprey mother and son?
My geese like to hang around after getting fed and let the food settle. Nothing like fat, happy geese.
Quite a scene. A pair of Wood Ducks, a Raccoon scavenging on the shore and my geese.
It wasn't that long ago that the sheriff's deputies and I cleaned up the island, and now this. Sheesh! This is not a garbage pit people, this is my beloved island.
A Bald Eagle soars over the island.
A Blue Heron on Balum's Pole.
A nice low shot of the sun sparkles on the river.
A Sealion breaches the surface for some air as he swims upstream looking for Salmon.
The beach near Southend at Golden Hour.
More fun with knives. I'm getting pretty good with these things.
We finally got away from the slip and went to Southend! It was a real easy journey. Despite the fact the tide was going out, there was enough wind from the north that it pushed our bow upstream, no doubt thanks to the fact that with three pontoons we have so little hull in the water the current doesn't have much effect on us. A "grueling" quarter mile cruise and the engines have hardly warmed up! Anchoring went off without a hitch, all is well!
Morning at Southend. Notice that our geese are here. They found us so we started feeding them on the beach.
Sunrise off the back deck.
A couple of deer emerged from the woods and contemplated crossing over to the island.
The end of the island sunlit just perfectly.
A dead beaver washed up on the beach. Hey, everyone dies.
A good shot of us at Southend.
I made a little feeding bowl for the geese. Getting close to full domestication in very short time.
We were sitting on the front deck watching the river flow by and saw the geese, who have been hanging around since we arrived here, look deeply into each other's eyes. It was a very touching moment, monogamous love, as this pair has been together for years. Shortly afterward they had sex "on the beach", literally. Afterwards they bathed thoroughly and the music, Englebert Humperdink's After The Lovin' just makes this movie perfect!
A Blue Heron on the piling near us. He sure is pretty.
A kite surfer/kite boarder. I learned from comments on YouTube that this is a Hydrofoil board, which explains why he's not crashing through the waves. His board is riding just a foot or so over the waves due to a hydrofoil skeg under the board.
The slough on a nice calm day.
I took a long walk across Shillapoo Wildlife Refuge all the way to Vancouver Lake. First up, a shot of Mount St. Helens through a tree in the WLR.
Another shot of Mount St. Helens across a field of wild mustard flowers. In a few weeks this will all be plowed up for corn.
A hollowed out tree along a path in Vancouver Lake Park.
A big beautiful oak tree in the WLR.
I took a walk on the island all the way up to the north end. The ship there is haunting, who knows how many miles it has under its keel?
A snail crawls up a tree browsing on moss.
A wild rabbit searches for snacks on the shoreline of Fisherman's Channel.
A turtle hangs out near a log in the channel near the main ramp to Kadow's Marina.
A couple of interesting photos. I let you figure out what the trick is.
A juvenile Bald Eagle soaring overhead.
The same Bald Eagle, but this time he's perched on a tree right across the channel from us.
Here he's angry because an Osprey, an illegal immigrant from Mexico is harassing him. Osprey really get on the eagles nerves by dive-bombing them, swooping by fast and generally being mean. The eagles repay them by stealing their chicks and their fish catches.
Trimaran Transporter houseboat we named Great Ambition.
