A Fall Float Down the Yaquina River

Saturday last was the date set for the annual fall Yaquina River float. For Doryman, this been a Halloween tradition for eight years, on this beautiful coastal Oregon river. For others, (all comers welcome) it depends on the weather.

This year, the prognosticators said a big Pacific front was coming in and there would be rain, wind and more rain. Those of us who live on the coast tend to take the forecasts with a grain of salt. The most reliable prediction method is to look out the window.

The crowd was small and dedicated. As you can see in the photos, everyone was dressed for the worst. Which, of course meant that we were over dressed for a delightfully warm and mostly sunny day. Sorry those slackers less dedicated missed it.

This was the first time on the water for the completed Doryman Melonseed. Ive christened her Aria. We left the sailing gear at home and loaded up the oars for the trial run. My good friend Jim Ballou dropped by the Doryman boatyard early Saturday with a smart little skiff needing some attention so, for the river run, he didnt have a ride of his own.

It was an excellent opportunity to see how the melonseed performed with a payload. Jim and I shifted our weight around to test for stability and Im happy to say the melonseed is a wonderful little boat. She rows like a dream, cant wait to set up a sail rig and see how she flies.....

,

Bob, deep in conversation with Chuck and Shalline:

Jim taking it easy while Michael does all the work. (Just teasing you, Jim.)


Thanks to Shalline for the photos of Aria.





And a short video of Jim R, with Lucy the Dog, in the Lazy Duck skiff. Commentary by Jim B.


Fall 2013 on the Yaquina River from doryman on Vimeo.

If you havent had enough, heres the rest of the pictures.

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Yaquina River Halloween

Every year, no matter where Ive lived, sometime close to Halloween, Ive ridden a tidal or river current in a rowboat to celebrate. This is not a superstition of any kind. For the last few years, the Coots have joined me for this long-standing tradition.

Fall rains combined with spring tides make for strong currents. Which make rowing easy, its that simple.

How can you have fall rains and spring tides at the same time? Never mind that. The operative word is Rain. (yes, thats an uppercase R)

Which might explain the preponderance of motorized vessels on the river today with warm dry cabins. Some of the Coots are claiming seniority, ie: "Im getting too old to sit out in the rain all day".

We wont hold it against them.

 Its very hard to predict the weather for this event. Last year, the fall run-off was on a pleasant sunny day. In fact, it was very nice the year before. And the archives tell us the weather was fine for 2009 and 2008 as well.

 Pacific Northwest rainforest.

Look closely, this is not a blurry shot.You can see the atmosphere. (quite literally)

For about ten minutes just after slack tide, as we left the dock, the rain stopped. You will note that as he gets the oars adjusted, Doryman is very happy.





A very short few minutes later, a symphony played on the water. Make no mistake. Doryman is still very happy.

Yaquina Halloween from doryman on Vimeo.

 One thing to watch for this time of year is all the floating debris. Some of those old boom logs lie just below the surface and have big spikes in them!
[When this area was first logged, a century ago, trees were skidded down to the water, where rafts of them were made, to float out to waiting ships. The logs were contained by chaining a perimeter of logs together. These were called boom logs and the chains were attached to them with spikes. Many of those old logs remain today, usually high on a river bank, until high water comes and shuffles them to a new beaching.]

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