Great Ambition, third 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.
Click here to go back to our second year.
After getting back from Minnesota and all parts in between I had a bug to go all the way up to Vancouver Lake. The charts show a picket of pilings at the outflow which made us think it would be too hard to get into the lake. Also it does not show the island at this end of the lake.
However I checked with Felida moorage and they said those are history. We cruised down the Columbia to Warrior Rock, took a right and cruised up Lake River.
After four hours of cruising we arrived on the lake. This is the area where the pilings are supposed to be. No sign of pilings and look at the view! What a gorgeous place!
We found a cove on the East side of the island. This island isn't on the charts, it is a pile of dredge spoils left over from dredging the lake in the late '80s. We are using the island to block the majority of Northwest wind that is forecast.
The wildlife out here is fantastic. We watched this Golden Eagle for nearly twenty minutes before he took off.
We also saw many Bald Eagles.
The next morning was just wonderful, with a sunrise over the hills to the East of us.
The morning light sure looks pretty on the trees, this is the view off the front deck.
Just another shot of our spot near the island.
Here we are from a long ways out, about 1/3rd of a mile.
We had a float-plane do a couple of tours of the lake, just skimming the surface. Here he is just kissing the water.
It got hot so we swam and swam and swam.
Here is the sunrise on our last morning here. Too bad, I really like it here, but DAR calls.
We had to pass by Felida moorage on our way home. Here is an interesting house, with interesting decorations.
We restocked water, groceries, and pumped out, then headed for Gilbert River. There is a free dock (paid for by boating registration fees) that we can tie up to. We are all alone at least for now.
We have a submerged tree next to us. Kinda weird but nothing to worry about.
Looking out towards Multnomah Channel.
I took a walk on the shore, the woods there were dense but walkable. Very pretty!
Wild roses were growing all over the place. These were on the opposite shoreline.
We left at 6:00AM on Saturday to catch the little tidal flow upstream (actually it just slightly cancelled some of the downstream velocity). I pulled away from the dock by backing out for nearly an eighth mile, good thing I have a rearward facing camera. As we approached Fred's Marina we saw these two deer trying to find a place to make landfall. They had left Sauvie and got confused because on the mainland side there is nothing but marinas and floating homes.
With all of April's Daughters of Union Vets duties behind her, we are off again. We took off Sunday morning planning to go to Gilbert River again. On our way down we passed under the new Sauvie Island bridge. Notice how in the reflection only the vertical stays are clear, the rest are fuzzy. I'm sure there is a mathematical function that explains that, but I'm not too worried about it.
While cruising by Coon Island docks we saw our old friends Tom and Jerry, so we stopped by and ended up staying. Some of their friends were there and we were invited to hang out, then they left and some other friends of theirs invited us to join them for drinks. They had wanted to clear a log jam on the upstream side of the docks, we got it started and after we cleared about a third of it, they joined us. We got it down to just a quarter of what it was before we gave up, exhausted. We made a lot of friends that way.
We decided to finish clearing the log jam here. It was about 800 cubic feet of logs, sticks, lumber, etc. We used the dinghy, boathooks and a grappling hook to move it past the end of the dock where the current could take it away. This whole area was filled with wood.
After three days at Coon Island we left for Gilbert River docks and were happy to see that no one else was there. Only two days earlier it was filled with our friends, but there wasn't room for us at the time. Now it's empty.
After two days at Gilbert River we left for St. Helens to fill up our water tank and buy a few supplies. On the way down Multnomah Channel we saw a few eagles, this guy is pretty.
When we got to St. Helens there was another boat fueling up so we only had 20 feet of dock to tie up to, but that was enough. After leaving we crossed the Columbia and headed into Lake River, a short journey, but a storm was moving in and we got off the Columbia just in time as we were hit with some major wind and rain. We passed a few people in open boats, but couldn't stop to help them without risking our own boat. Finally the weather let up and we arrived at Somewhere Else, Lake River.
This place is crawling with wildlife. We have seen tens of eagles.
Also saw a deer walking the bank.
Took a putt in the dinghy to get some shots, here is a nice one. These big trees protect us against the west and northwest winds, but they are also tall enough to whack us should they fall.
I found these flowers on the shore, purple is April's favorite color, and I always get points for bringing her flowers.
We spent two days and nights on Vancouver Lake, a really nice place. We picked up the grandkids and parents near the 30MPH curve on Lower River Road and dragged them back to the island. We all had a nice visit.
After the kids left we settled in for the night and then the sunset went wild on us. Just fantastic!
We decided to start working our way back to our home slip, so after two days on the lake, we cruised past St. Helens and went back to Gilbert River docks. This shot was taken from quite a ways up Gilbert River as we explored the river to discover if we could pass with Great Ambition.
This river goes all the way to Sturgeon Lake on Sauvie Island, an area we know only by reputation. For the last ten years we have watched an airplane flown by a unseen pilot we named "Air Show Guy" do aerobatic maneuvers over Sturgeon Lake, the area's designated aerobatic airspace. On our dinghy ride we saw some fantastic views, and decided we would try piloting Great Ambition up this narrow, but deep channel where we found numerous potential anchorages. That way when Air Show Guy does another show, we can watch from directly beneath him.
Guys, flowers are the key. I found another type of purple flower, a real beauty.
We did two weeks away from the slip on this last run. We returned to Kadows, restocked gas, propane and groceries and headed out again after three days. We are headed back to Gilbert River, but not the docks, to anchor in the actual river and make our way up to Sturgeon Lake eventually. Our first stop was chosen for its protection from the forecast northwest winds.
The current is vicious here, so we deployed four anchors in the water and two ground anchors into the bank. The bank is pretty firm mud, perfect for my ground anchors.
While hanging out on the front deck I watched a Bald Eagle flying towards us and caught him flaring for a landing almost directly above us! While not a perfect shot, it is pretty amazing.
It turns out, the tree almost directly above the living room of Great Ambition is a prefered perch for this Bald Eagle. He came back again and again, and in this shot you can see how his perching has worn the bark off this branch. Because of this eagle roost we named this place Eagle Roost Anchorage.
In another neat wildlife encounter, we found we were visited by a "paddling" of Wood Duck chicks. This group visited our anchorage daily, but curiously there was always one less than the day before. We are thinking that they had been left by their parents and one by one they were learning to fly and thus were free to leave their siblings behind. Wood Ducks are among the prettiest ducks, they have a distinctive call and very different habits from other ducks.
On the Fourth of July we decided to move because the weather was forecasting a change in the winds and we wanted to find cover and to try someplace new. We tried anchoring at a lovely place we named Oak Hollow, but our anchors just would not bite into the hard mud below. Too bad, such a pretty place.
We moved on after several attempts and found a nice deep hole, up to 30 feet deep where we thought the anchors might hold. We were right, they held so we stayed put.
We named this place Flicker Meadow after the huge meadow to the West of this anchorage. The place is full of Flickers, a kind of Woodpecker.
It's funny, we are only about a mile from Eagle Roost, and we have not seen any eagles. We love living with all the wildlife here. We have seen a "pod" of otters, but no pictures of them yet. However, we have seen quite a few Goldfinches, really pretty birds.
At 3:45AM we awoke to the sound of a clunk on the hull. I got up to find a 10 foot log pinned to the stern by the very strong tidal current. April got up to help me get it off, then minutes later I watched in horror as out of the darkness a 50 foot long, 5 ton tree trunk approached our stern. It hit and stuck, putting enormous strain on our anchors as the inrushing tidal current shoved it into our outboards. It took every scrap of courage, ingenuity and muscle to get it off the stern. We had to free two anchors on the stern so that we were hanging only by one anchor. But it held and the tree trunk slid down the side of the boat and off into the darkness.
Although we suffered no damage, we were tramatized by the event and when the tide went slack we pulled up anchors and headed back down river to the safety of the Gilbert River docks. The next day I took the dinghy up the river to find this evil beast and drag it back down and free it into Multnomah Channel which would eventually take it out to sea.
After a few days at the docks, we thought we would try our luck again and head up river, this time to Sturgeon Lake. Gilbert River continues up through the lake, but at several points the levee is breached so the lake water flows straight into the river. This shot shows the first levee breach.
This Google Maps applet will make it much clearer. In this map, they call it Malarky Lake for some reason, but most maps call the whole thing Sturgeon Lake. You can see how the river snakes its way into the lake.
View Larger Map
We made it past the first breach, then went on to what April named Dead Mans Curve where I veered too close to the inside of the bend and grounded Great Ambition. It took us a minute to get unstuck using both outboards in reverse, we kicked up quite a bit of mud. We backed up and set anchors in the channel at a deep spot that would protect us from the forecast northwest winds. Just behind us is a small breach to the lake.
In this shot from the roof of Great Ambition you can see the river behind us and the lake beyond the very narrow section of levee that remains here.
We saw some awesome wildlife. An old, graying Eagle had a perch here (the tall tree in the left-center of the picture above). He flew by and I caught this grizzled old character.
We also had a deer come out and graze on the shore near us.
The next morning we had a wonderful sunrise.
This is the view out the front of Great Ambition.
And finally, much to our delight, Airshow Guy came out and gave us a show just a half mile to the Northeast of our anchorage.
Running low on water it was time to leave Gilbert River after a total of 11 days at four different spots. This trip greatly expanded the number of fantastic anchoring locations and gave us even more new places to explore as Sturgeon Lake becons.
Sitting in the slip I get unlimited computer time, so I did some video editing and created my own version of the US Air Force's movie High Flight, featuring the poem High Flight by John Gillespie Magee, Junior.
A few months later I found that Google had captured us at Sturgeon Lake, so I made a video.
We went to Southend to avoid the heat, topping out at 106 on land, closer to 95 on the boat. We noticed a carp laying on the shore, a few minutes later, so did this Osprey. The fish was way too big for him to carry and when he tried he had to drop it in the water where it sank. Poor guy. A Bald Eagle would have eaten some before trying to carry it away, but I guess Osprey's worry about being challenged by an Eagle, which will steal an Osprey's catch!
We spent a lot of time in Lil' Ambition anchored in deep water swimming, relaxing, swimming, reading, swimming, etc. Here's a nice shot of April floating in 25 feet of 72 degree water at just about sunset. The only way to stay cool.
Here is one reason we like being at Southend, the Christiansen Yacht manufacturing facility is just up-river and when they finish a boat they take it out for a shakedown cruise past Caterpillar Island and then back up to the plant in Vancouver. This is a real beauty. You know, Tiger Wood's boat was built by Christiansen.
We went back to the slip so April could play with the rest of the band at the annual "All July Birthday" party. It was lots of fun.
After a few days back at the slip we took off again for Coon Island. We spent three days on the East docks. We parked in the same area that we cleared of floating debris back in June.
We walked the path on the island a few times, the county is doing a good job keeping the paths clear of fallen trees and stuff.
After three days at Coon Island we cruised down to Gilbert River docks. When we arrived, no one was there. So quiet and peaceful, compared to Coon Island where most yachts run their generators half the day.
After three days at the Gilbert River docks we decided to head inland to Flicker Meadows, the place where we got hit with the 5 ton tree trunk. Sorta like getting back on the horse. We sure had a nice time there.
While picking blackberries for making pancake syrup, we ran across this cute little guy. He's a Chukar (Alectoris Chukar), related to the quail family. These birds were imported from Afghanistan for gaming, but people in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan keep these birds as pets. "Prince Chuck" was very friendly, he allowed me to get very close to him, and was never scared away by our presence. He came back every day and explored the shore right next to us while looking for food. He's a real mountain goat, but with wings. He could easily climb up or down the cliff face to the meadow, and of course if he gets in trouble he can just fly away!
Here's a great shot of April.
Here is a great shot of the view off the front deck looking South.
We talked to our neighbors about meeting us at Coon Island to watch the Perseid Meteor Showers so we pulled up anchors and drove on up Multnomah Channel. Unfortunately they went to St. Helens instead, so here we are all alone at Coon Island again. That's fine, we put our anchor lines into the much cleaner water to get them clean.
A couple of days later, we were inundated with yachts, so we decided it was time to go.
The cruise back home was wonderful, here is a moorage with the hills in the background. There are seven floating homes for sale at this moorage, if you want to live this version of paradise.
On our way up Multnomah Channel we passed this cute little houseboat tied up at Hadley's Landing. It's a Patio Cruiser. The couple there were quite impressed by Great Ambition, the guy was nearly speechless.
Back at Coon Island it was very quiet, and quite warm! Here is a nice shot of Great Ambition with the daily gravel barge in the background working his way up Multnomah Channel. He does not pass this side of the island so we don't have to deal with his wake.
I took a few walks on Coon Island and tried using Candlelight mode to more accurately reflect the views I saw on my treks.
We wanted to avoid crowds at Coon Island over the weekend, so we motored on down to Gilbert River docks. On our first day we saw this guy kayaking with his dog, very cute. I used to ride my dog Dino on the tank of my Yamaha 80 motorcycle, so I was impressed that this dog did a good job helping with the balance of the boat.
My buddy came out in his little Bayliner and took us for rides up Gilbert River. Here is April coming back from a trip up the river.
A couple of kayakers got so exhausted paddling against the tidal current they gave up and stopped at the Gilbert River docks near us. They needed to get back to the Gilbert River boat ramp so I took them in the dinghy and towed their kayaks up to the ramp. They were pretty grateful, and I'm always happy to help boaters in trouble. Lord knows I've been towed in by plenty of helpful folks in my youth.
While at Gilbert River docks we helped Jon and Cindy from Lazy B IV dock up. They had more people coming the next day so we braced for more crowded docks. Eventually it looked like this:
These folks don't have solar panels or propane fridges, so they have to run their generators nearly all the time. Eventually we got nauseous from the generator exhaust, and since we had been at the docks for 48 hours (the limit) we headed off for Flicker Meadow. So nice here, no generators and no exhaust!
Airshow guy arrived, this time running his smoke generator. Our own personal air show every day.
We got up Wednesday morning to to find fog on the river. So pretty.
And here is the view of the meadow at sunrise from the upper deck, that's the Flicker tree where they like to congregate.
I took a hike on Sauvie Island from Flicker Meadow over to Multnomah Channel, just to find out where we were relative to the land. I found myself on the shore of Multnomah Channel just South of Coon Island. That's really neat!
Coming back to Great Ambition I saw just a hint of our boat below the meadow.
And here is Great Ambition from the meadow.
We got a lot of wind out of the North and had to flee Flicker Meadow. Our Fortress FX-23 anchors just don't hold that well in the hard mud bottom of Gilbert River. We ran back to the Gilbert River docks and a short time later our friends Jon and Cindy came by in Lazy B IV and cruised up Gilbert River. They had seen us go up the river the weekend before, they had always gone up it in their dinghy, but we suspect they weren't confident taking their big yacht up the river until they saw us go up and there and survive.
After two days at the docks we figured it was time to leave, but the wind was howling and we didn't want to have to navigate home in a choppy, angry river so we stayed one more night, making it our 86th night away from the slip this year. We were richly rewarded when the moon and Jupiter (on the left) came out. You can also see the glow of the city lights of Portland behind the trees on the bank.
So after 13 nights away from the home slip, we fired up the AIS ship tracking web site and proceed against the tide back home. We made 15 nautical miles in 3 hours, about 5 knots which isn't too bad. After getting home we found that someone had dumped a huge load of wood on the Southend beach. You know what that means?
Bonfire!
I've posted quite a few pictures of Wood Ducks, but here is something new. A brood of juvenile wood ducks who have been haunting Fisherman's Slough since we got back from Gilbert River. We knew their parents were up to something!
We went to Southend for a few days. We can't stay long because we've got a big 912 Project rally to go to on Saturday! During the sunset we got some nice lighting effects on the shoreline, here some ripples project stripes onto the grassy shore.
I caught this sunset from just off the Southend sandspit.
The shallows here are great for wading and provide a very gentle way to work your way into the water. You have to walk about a quarter mile out into the river before you get deep enough to actually swim.
A pair of herons got into a turf war, this one is the aggressor trying to drive the intruder out.
Back in the slip after 90 nights out and about this year. I took a cruise with a friend of mine and came across Plum Crazy, the only other houseboat we know to ply the rivers of this area. Here she's anchored off Willow point hiding from the Northwest wind. Anchoring in the Columbia is surely Plum Crazy.
We went out to Southend again, the marina people are doing dock repairs so we are avoiding the sawing and hammering. Here we are anchored in our normal spot.
We had thought about getting a boat like this, it's a Powercat. Nice bridge, and notice the kayaks mounted on the front of the amas, or pontoons. This boat could probably take anything, she probably costs half a million bucks too!
I had to take Lil' Ambition out to get this sunset shot. The same trees that protect Great Ambition from the Northwest winds also hinder our sunset views, but less than being in the slip.
Global Forwarder parked in front of the island in the middle of the night, so I captured this shot while the fog was still relatively thin.
On our last day here I got this shot of the fog just lifting out of the water.
We went out for a drift on the fall equinox and caught this ship, New Fantasy coming up and getting ready to anchor.
And we caught this marvelous sunset.
After a trip down South we came back to our beloved river and caught this sunset.
I can't decided which one I like better, so you get to see both.
On a short roadtrip we drove over to Swan Island to get pictures of this ship, the USS Sea Fighter. We saw her on the AIS website but found that she was on land! Apparently she's getting a refit. She's a twin hull catamaran, just like us. Unlike us she can do 60 MPH in the ocean.
On a drift in front of the island we watched ID North Sea pull up his anchor and get spun around by a Shaver tug so he could go downstream.
Another nice sunset.
The geese are back in force, here is a wedge crossing in front of the sunset.
We took a cruise in Lil' Ambition to get some shots of Sea Fighter after AIS revealed that she was back in the water. Got some great shots. Lil' Ambition has a lot in common with Sea Fighter, they are both aluminium catamarans, but Sea Fighter is a lot faster than Lil' Ambition!
An otter found himself a crawdad and chose to eat it under the dock near us.
While walking the beach I found a garter snake in the surf, he was alive but very cold. I picked him up (he couldn't slither away, he was super slow from the cold) and after just a minute in my hand he was fiesty enough to let go.
A nice Halloween sunset.
I now have proof that AGW (manmade global warming) is TRUE! I know, I know, I've been a skeptic, but now I have proof. I found this coconut rolling in the surf on Caterpillar Island which is North of 45 degrees latitude. There must be palm trees upstream of here, hence, there must be massive warming in the area that I haven't noticed. Or this could have fallen from a ship during a grocery restocking, but that seems far less likely doesn't it?
While walking the beach I watched some ship wakes crash into this log. Makes for a pretty picture.
Another nice sunset.
We had a pretty nasty storm come through on November 5th, 2009. We heard lots of trees falling on the island but since it was dark we couldn't tell which ones were going down. The next morning we took a look and found that the tree holding our Osprey nest was knocked down. Put your mouse over the image to see the difference.
And here is a nice sunrise. You can see Mount Hood in this shot looking over Shillappo Wildlife Refuge just across the road from us.
A nice view of Fisherman's slough, our front room view.
We've had an interesting problem for a while now. Our fancy autosteering SatTV dish doesn't work very well when it's raining. This is because it has to have a radome to protect the steering mechanism and moisture on the radome blocks the signal. So we've been living without satellite TV on rainy days, but now that I'm retired, it's harder to spend weeks without something we pay dearly for. What to do...
I had an idea, I bought a DirecTV dish and attached it to the dock shed at our slip. Then I ran the cable from the dish to Great Ambition and brought it aboard using the Cable TV connector that came with the boat when we bought it. That way I didn't have to drill a hole in the boat. Onboard we use the external dish when at the slip, and switch to the autosteering KVH dish when away from the slip. The dock based dish works great in all weather and since I used a slip on "F" connector to bring the cable aboard it's easy to remove when it's time to leave the slip.
We had very high winds associated with a storm on November 16th. While surveying the situation I noticed an old yacht at a dock upstream (and more importantly upwind) of us that had broken free of its bow line and was being held in place only by a single stern line. If that line parted, this yacht would have blown down on us and surely caused some serious damage. My neighbor and I jumped into Lil' Ambition and drove over to the dock to correct the situation. Here you can see me on the foredeck securing a line to the bow while my neighbor stands ready on the dock to pull the yachts bow back to the dock. We were successful and averted a major disaster, for us anyway.
Another nice sunset.
A beautiful shot of the slough with some pretty clouds in the sky. But look closer, this shot is actually reversed, you are looking into the water, not into the sky. Put your mouse over the image to see the real photo.
As the full moon rose, this tree fell and broke over the full moon. Just kidding, but you can easily arrange these kinds of shots from a boat as you can place yourself exactly where you need to be to get the shot. Taken from Lil' Ambition.
We had a cold Northeast wind whip up and it took down our last standing dead tree in our Southwest view.
I was able to catch this video of a Merganser female after she caught a fish. Pretty rare as they generally fly away as soon as they see a human, but I guess she didn't see me and had to gulp this fish down before flying anyway.
Taking sunset pictures I saw this catamaran ship coming upstream, her name is Kilo Moana. It's interesting to see her two bow anchors just dangling off the bow rollers, you would think she would want those stowed somehow to keep them from damaging the hulls when the going gets rough.
And here is the sunset I was photographing at the time.
I anchored Lil' Ambition off the South end of the island and watched this ship emerge from the fog. Kinda spooky looking!
We had a few inches of snow on December 29th, so we took Lil' Ambition out for a drift down the island to see how it changed our island. Very pretty!
Here is the last 5 minutes of my year end DVD slideshow featuring Jace Vek's Brooke's Lullaby.
I videotaped the snow and set it to music. Here is December 29th's snow set to Across the View by Richard Burmer.
Some people think we live in a little tiny boat, this ought to clear things up a bit. In this shot taken from the living room I'm looking back towards the back room, hence the aft section of the boat. In one frame you can see April peeking out from the back room, which is about 12 feet by 7 feet. This is the music and computer room. Behind her is the full size sliding glass door that goes out to the back deck, the stairs to the upper deck and the gate to the dock.
Next frame you can see I have the pocket door to the back room closed, and April is sitting at the dinning room table. I close the pocket door when I am doing video/audio editing and April closes it when she is practicing the bass or violin and I'm watching TV or surfing the web on the front room TV/computer.
In the last frame I am poking my head out of the bedroom door, this has a normal queen size bed with a Tempurpedic mattress and a pair of closets for our clothes. So you can see, it's like a small apartment, the living room is also the kitchen and the dining room, but that's nice because we can talk while one of us is fixing meals, which you can't do in most homes.
And now for the other direction. Just days after the above picture was taken we bought a new loveseat to go in the back room. This allows us to enjoy the views out the back sliding glass door which in some anchorages are nicer than the view out the front door. For example, at Dead Mans Curve on Sturgeon Lake we can watch the sunrise off the front deck in the morning and enjoy the sunset from this loveseat while keeping the mosquitos at bay behind the screen door.
We had a nice sunrise this morning and I found a berry tendril to "snakify" the scene.
A nice sunset near the end of January, can this be the end of winter?
For our first journey of 2010 we cruised Great Ambition 21 miles roundtrip to catch the Portland Polar Plunge to benefit Special Olympics on January 30th. It was a hoot! The water temp was 40 degrees, the air wasn't much warmer. They had 18 groups go in the water, with names like Numb Nuts, Icy Jugs and Major Shrinkage. Our friend Karin Bishop was in the last group, her and her sister are waving "plungers" (very clever) so they are fairly easy to spot.
Whenever we go out like we did yesterday, we always pull into the slip bow first. However, we prefer the bow to be pointed towards the island most of the time. So how do we do it? We use a pair of ropes, a pair of brains and a lot of muscle to spin this nearly 20,000 pound beast around. This technique took us weeks to figure out and can only be done near slack tide when the water is fairly low. If the current is too strong we just can't handle the load manually. In those cases we just live with being nose-in to the dock.
Every two weeks we have to pump out. Our homemade "honey bucket" wagon can only take 35 gallons max, about what we generate in 15 days. We built this wagon with a manual pump which works great. We started with an electric pump, but it just coudn't handle the job. We have to pump the boat tank into the white barrel, then drag the wagon down the dock to the "Poop Deck", the sewage pump shack, then pump into the tank there. That tank is pumped to the island leech field by multiple electric pumps. The manual pump allows us to do this job in about 15-20 minutes which isn't bad. We only generate a tenth of the sewage that most households generate thank goodness!
The weather is getting nice, here it is the middle of February and we have temps in the 60s. We're getting ready to head out again, Vancouver Lake or Coon Island. The gas in our tanks is over 6 months old, we really should use it before it goes bad on us.
We finally got out and docked up at Coon Island. It's cold at night, but our central heat system does just fine, actually overheated us a bit until I got the right thermostat setting. Sun is out so we'll keep the generator time down, but it won't be zero. This isn't summer, yet.
As the sun drops behind Coon Island the sun casts shadows of the trees on the water. Pretty...
The next day the sun rises above Sauvie Island, also pretty...
In a reversal of a stroll I took over 5 months ago, I took the dinghy up-channel a bit and beached it so I could walk about 1.2 miles past Crane Lake to visit one of our favorite anchorages on Gilbert River, Flicker Meadow. It looks quite different with bare trees. We can't go here in Great Ambition because Gilbert River is off limits unless you have a hunting license.
And finally, on the way back I pass by this slough. I like it, so pretty!
As my article in Houseboat Magazine is coming out I should talk about Solar Power. While the sun is shining every day and giving us a good charge, the propane furnace is running for about four times an hour all night sucking it up. The overnight temps have been in the low 30s and it's taking about 5 pounds of propane per night to keep us warm. The furnace blower runs on 12V from the batteries, hence the draw on our solar reserves. Plus, it's February, only two months after the winter solstice and the sun is still very low in the sky, and we only get about 10 hours of daylight. Our solar panels are struggling to get the batteries up to the bulk charge level of 14.4V. For this reason we have had to run our little Honda EU2000i generator to run the dehumidifier every morning and to run the TV at night. We also boost the batteries with an hour of AC charger time or like yesterday, with a half hour of engine time while we cruised from Coon Island to Gilbert River. With this we are getting by running the stereo all day, running the satellite TV box and lights at night without running the batteries down. Compare this to the end of last March when we braved Lake River where we had no sunshine and had to run the big generator so much that after 3 days we gave up and went back to the slip.
While parked at Coon Island we were next to an ex-firefighter and his wife in a boat named Fire Escape. That's all I can say legally. God forbid someone mis-read my posts and feel that I insulted them.
Coon Island docks allow a 72 hour stay, and with the weekend approaching, knowing that lots of folks would be heading for Coon Island docks for the weekend, we hightailed it to Gilbert River docks. This time of year the river is closed to anyone without an Oregon Waterfowl hunting license, but the dock is open all year long for all comers. April took the helm this time, her first time doing it all. She did a great job even though the current was not in our favor at Gilbert River.
We spent two nights at Gilbert River with only one other boat spending Saturday night at the dock. We love it there, but the current can be merciless, so on Sunday we spun the boat around at slack tide and made our way back to Coon Island. This time we decided to try the Westside docks. In the summer these can be hot and unbearable, but in February Westside is what we needed to give us the sun we craved for our solar panels as well as the natural heating through our double glazed windows.
By spending Sunday night at Coon Island we could wake up early and ride the incoming tide back upstream to the Willamette River. By the time we got there, the tide had turned and helped carry us back home. On the way we took this picture of a serene Monday morning sunrise at one of the local floating home moorages. Just a wonderful way to live, too bad some of those folks have to go to work!
I bought a new LED light for the kitchen range hood from StarLights Here are three pictures of the same scene, the same camera setting, nothing has changed. First a regular 11 Watt incandescent light bulb.
Now a regular LED light.
Now the StarLights 2.5 Watt LED light.
Did you notice that I'm shooting at a mirror and you can't see the camera? I'm not an idiot, I arranged things so that the camera reflection is masked by the potholder hanging on the right side of the photo. Just below it you can see the vertical support for the tripod. Obviously to keep myself out of the picture I had to set the delayed shutter and step back as the camera waited to take the shot on its own.
We had a fantastic sunset on Feb 27. I nearly missed it, but was able to putt out in the dinghy to catch it just in the nick of time.
We are thinking about starting another adventure, but even here in the slip it's more beautiful than living in town.
Getting up early to get ready to go to Vancouver Lake. The moon is setting, good morning world!
And here we are! A short 5 hour cruise down the Columbia and up Lake River. We are parked in our favorite spot on the Northeast side of the island. There is a tinge of green to the trees and our old eagle was waiting there, saving our spot.
Looking North, so lovely.
We had an awesome evening. Conserving power we hung out on the front deck with the big Mr. Heater keeping us warm while we enjoyed the view of Vancouver from across the lake.
I got some nice shots of planes entering the pattern for PDX. Remember, these shots are taken from a boat. You gotta give my Kodak a lot of credit too!
Thursday was a nice sunny day. By 1:00PM the charge controller had us up to 14.4V, which meant that by 2:00PM the charge controller backed off to 13.5V, so I could use the extra power for charging camera batteries and other things. We are still being frugal with our battery power, we watched a half hour of Jeopardy! and then a two and a half hour movie using the little Honda generator. Our reward is that we woke up with our battery voltage at 12.1V even with the furnace running all night. By the way, shortly after taking the picture above I realized that I had forgotten to lower the VHF antenna. A shadow like that one, cutting across the whole panel severely reduces power output. Lowering the antenna when we are not underway keeps maximum charge going to the batteries.
With a change in wind direction forecast we went looking for another spot to anchor. Vancouver Lake is very shallow, we circled the island in 3 feet of water without ever finding a good hole. So off I went in the dinghy to scout out a new anchorage with April piloting Great Ambition.
We ended up in a cove up on the Northwest side of the lake. It's over 6 feet deep here, and fairly well protected from the West, North and Northeast, but we are wide open on the East through Southwest. However, it makes for some spectacular night shots with Portland (far left), the Clark County PUC natural gas power plant, West Hills radio and TV towers, (middle) and the Port of Portland Terminal 6 all lit up, and the grain terminal on the Willamette (right). There are also two planes in the pattern for PDX
And here is a closeup of Terminal 6 on Hayden Island. This is a container port facility and here you can very clearly see the cranes to offload the containers from Asia into Portland to be transported by truck or rail all over Amercia.
After sun-up we turned on the news, the weather is going to go downhill and the lake depth is getting worse. Time to get out while we can. It sure was a nice three days though!
As before I had to scout a path out of Vancouver Lake from this Northwest side anchorage using the dinghy. I used a sneak path that allowed us to get off the lake without going all the way back out into the shallow inflow/outflow channel. This side channel of the lake is about 6 feet deep most the way at lowish tide, although it does shallow up to about 2.7 feet at the connection to the regular channel. It's also quite narrow and you have to come in at a slight angle to get in. However, it saved driving us over a lot of potential choke points and we might want to anchor in it someday, so it's worth a second look.
And here is a shot of us underway, that's Willow Point on the right. I would show you the picture of us going nose to nose with the cargo ship Long Beach but I was kinda busy right about then.
We've spent a week at the slip, various bits of business have kept us here. But we had a nice day on Monday, spent the whole afternoon on the island, soaking up the sun, watching the Yaquina dredge in front of the island, walking the beach. As nice as that was though, we're gonna get going again, probably to Coon Island.
After a very smooth journey we made the Coon Island Westside docks around noon. The next day after mentioning that we had not seen the gravel barge, here it comes, pushed by one of our favorite tugs, Nancy Ann. We recently discovered the source of the gravel, it's just to the Northwest of us (which you can examine by using the above link and switching to satellite mode).
The weather here has been great, solar power is up dramatically from February (no surprise!). We get up in the morning with the battery voltage at 12.2V, and by 1PM we are at 14V. Party because of the solar power being so quiet we get our fair share of "visitors", like this bloke who decided to eat his supper just a few hundred feet away from us.
Pretty wildflowers on Coon Island.
A Golden Eagle soaring over Coon Island.
Dusk on Sunday night after everyone else left Coon Island Westside docks.
Now that we are back at the slip we can spend some time enjoying Caterpillar Island. Such a lovely place.
I spent the last couple of sunny days lounging on the island. I used Lil' Ambition to get there. Here is a shot of my camp.
The Wood Ducks are back, here they perched on a piling near our slip. This mating pair flew away shortly after I snapped this picture, as they are very suspicious of any human activity.
We had a fantastic sunset on March 31st. Wow!
I often find interesting things washed up on the island beach. Today it's a cute little teddy bear blanket. No need to throw it out, a run through the washer and ta-da! Put your mouse over the image to see the difference.
The Osprey are back, here is one soaring over the beach while I take my walk.
A candid shot of April on the front deck. You can see that we have our large Mr. Heater running, just to take the chill off. Our front yard is pretty sweet, no?
We are off again, at a new place we found. We haven't named it yet, but we'll think of something.
And then the sunset, so pretty!
I filmed a panorama of our new favorite spot. So pretty!
A nice shot of the view off our front deck. So pretty!
A beaver on our Northernly shore.
Then a pair of geese were relaxing on the Southernly shore when a beaver crawled up the bank. They were a little miffed at this intrusion!
I tried some night shots with the crescent moon and Venus on the horizon. So pretty!
We decided to call this place Beaver Bend Bayou. The eagles have been super abundant here, so much so that I eventually had to unload all the eagle video off my camera and composed this video. I hope you like it. The beautiful music is Reflections of Love by Hilary Stagg, available on iTunes.
A "Goose" landed in the nearby waterway, such a pretty plane!
A nice shot of our anchorage.
We moved to a new place to hide from the forecast SouthWest winds. When the sun started beaming through the back room window I just had to get this shot of our couch.
After the forecast winds changed their minds and came out of the North we got hammered. With all 6 anchors deployed we held our ground, but that was enough for us, time to go home (Kadows) and enjoy lots and lots of running water. When we got back we discovered a new family had been created right at the Southend of Caterpillar Island.
Got my new StarLights. It has a nice warm color, uses 1/10th of the power of a normal incandescent light and creates much less heat. It also has a swivel base so you can point it the direction you want. When you are powered by solar you tend to reduce your power consumption as much as possible and this light allows you to do that AND live a nice, bright life at night!
Had a peek-a-boo moment from the sun after a gloomy day. The sun shining on the trees behind the moorage was just stunning. This photo doesn't do it justice.
In going out to shoot pictures of the sunset April caught this heron fishing for his dinner.
With some free time on my hands I re-edited my Eagles of Vancouver video, much better I think. See if you agree...
We had a beach bonfire last week and as is my policy I always let it burn itself out. The result is far less ugly than burying it in sand and leaving an ugly pile of charred wood.
I walked the Oregon shore and found a new blue bunny (notice the bunny slippers on his feet!) and a flower.
I took a walk to catch the sunset but caught two eagles out for a last flight of the day.
A stroll through my yard. OK, I didn't mow the grass, but I like it better this way.
Three years ago we met Great Ambition at the Flying J truck stop in Troutdale. The driver, Pete had called to say he was in Oregon and ready to deliver her to us. This was our first glimpse of our new baby.
