Depoe Bay 2003

The 2003 Depoe Bay Crab Feed and Wooden Boat Show took place on the last weekend of April.  And a fine show it was!

Once again, Dad and I drove down to Oregon, pulling Wayward Lass behind us.  We started Thursday morning, catching the ferry from Vancouver Island then crossing the border at Blaine, Washington.  We stopped there at the Canadian customs office to have them stamp a picture of Wayward Lass, so we wouldn’t have any problems coming home.  Boats with motors under 10 horsepower don’t have to be licensed in Canada, so Wayward Lass has no numbers – this caused a delay in 2002 when the customs agent thought we were boat smugglers and we almost missed the last ferry home!

Our first stop was Seattle, to visit Chuck Merrell.  We met Chuck in 2000 at the informal Bolger boaters gathering at Port Townsend’s Wooden Boat Festival, and have kept in touch since.  We pulled off the freeway near Boeing Field, and followed Chuck’s directions to South Park Marina on the Duwamish Waterway, where he lives and is building Ace, one of his own “barrel boat bachelor pad” designs.  If you’re not familiar with Chuck’s website, go to http://www.boatdesign.com/ for his designs, his Bolger Micro page and other good stuff.

We caught up on the latest news over dinner, and inspected Ace, which is almost finished and looks like a snug home for Chuck, and Dumpster the cat.  Ace will be moored at South Park marina once she’s launched.  We considered spending the night in Seattle, so we could park the boat and trailer safely in the marina yard, but the thought of the morning rush-hour traffic changed our minds.  Instead, Dad and I drove for another hour, stopping just outside Olympia, the state capitol.

Next morning we reached the Columbia River at Portland just after 9:00.  Once across, we abandoned the interstate for the back roads, moving in a more or less south-westerly route through McMinnville to Lincoln City on the coast, just a few miles north of Depoe Bay.  This isn’t the fastest route with all its small towns and winding roads, but it made for an interesting morning.  We stopped for lunch in Lincoln City.  Dad had an excellent “Scottish soup with pieces of lamb”, (where I grew up it was called Scotch broth – is this the latest effect of political correctness?)  I had flatbread, with melted cheese and thinly sliced sausage that left my taste buds tingling.  The Blackfish Café -- good place to stop, if you’re passing by!

We arrived at Depoe Bay about 1:30, and after a leisurely rigging-up, Wayward Lass slid into Oregon waters again ,and was left in the first empty berth while we took a look around.  We found that we were among the first exhibitors to arrive, but it didn’t take long before we saw a few familiar faces, and boats, including John Kohnen (Pickle), Terry Lesh (Toto) and John Ewing (Surf and Jon Junior).

By then we were thinking of our stomachs, so we arranged to meet at the Spouting Horn for dinner, and went along to our motel, the Troller’s Lodge, to check in before walking down to the ‘Horn for an evening of good food and better company.

I woke early the next morning, and couldn’t get back to sleep, so just after 6:00 I was down at the boat, pumping out the rainwater.  Between the trip down, and the rain overnight, the floorboards were floating.  Since it was still pretty wet outside, I wasn’t a fanatic about pumping, no mopping up the last drops!  The Coast Guard were awake, too, taking their 47 footer out into the bay.  I heard them come in again after a short time, so maybe it was just a training run.

Back to the Troller’s for a shower, then over to the Whale Watchers Café for breakfast.  Larry Barker joined us here, the three of us had plans to go “outside” for a sail after.  The Coast Guard was allowing boats over 16 feet to go in and out, the lowest restriction we’d seen, to date.

By the time we reached the harbour, the sea wall was alive with boats and boaters.  Depoe Bay is largely a dry land show, with most of the exhibits displayed on the sea wall overlooking the docks, but this year there were quite a few boats in the water as well.  Pat Patteson presented me with my Western Oregon Messabout Society burgee, with its coot emblem.  I’m not sure if the group chose that emblem deliberately, but it fits pretty well, so now Dad and I are officially “old coots”!  We took a few minutes to get the burgee hoisted, then and Dad, Larry and I fired up Honda and took Wayward Lass out of the harbour.

You have to remember that this is the third year we’ve been here, but the first opportunity we’ve had to get out on the ocean.  Depoe Bay doesn’t have a bad bar, as such, but the entrance to the harbour is a narrow dog-leg where the Pacific swell often makes getting in and out problematic, so we used the outboard generously to make sure the waves didn’t push us around.  Once out and clear, we put up the sails, and shut down the motor.

You should also know that there are some nasty reefs on either side of the bay, where the swell piles up and breaks.  We were fully aware of these, so didn’t stray from the safe line between the entrance and the bell buoy that marks the transition to open waters.  The swell was of a size I hadn’t experienced before, we were moving up and down some 10 feet every 13 seconds.  I have to say that I was somewhat intimidated by the combination of the swell and the lurking reefs (we didn’t have a chart).  This, on top of the horror stories we’d had fed to us over the last two shows made the old pulse run a bit faster than usual.  The boat, however, was perfectly at home!

We sailed out to the bell buoy on a close reach, the wind being pretty much from the southwest.  We noticed the swell was more regular and not so steep once we were past the bell buoy, which marks the end of the shallow area, more or less.  Once we tacked, the course back to the entrance was an easy reach, so we took advantage of that and headed in again – not very adventurous, I agree, but okay for a maiden voyage.  Being still very aware of the reefs, we turned into the wind to start the motor while still fairly far out.  Of course, the motor chose this opportunity to be awkward, taking half a dozen pulls to start.  I’ve noticed this before, that it’s slow to restart when it’s cooling down.  When fully warmed, or cool, it only takes one pull – maybe two on a bad day.

But it did start, so the sails came down and we motored back along that line between the bell buoy and the entrance.  Larry watched the back bearing while I watched the entrance – we didn’t always agree on the right heading, but the differences were small enough.  At the entrance it’s best to go in on the back of a wave, to avoid surfing, but with only five horses, it takes more practice than I’ve had.  There wasn’t any danger anyway – I don’t know where the swells went, but by the time they reached the entrance, the waves were small.  Honda pushed us easily through the dog-leg and we were back in the harbour.

Once we were tied up again, it was time to have a proper look at all the other boats, not to mention picking up our free coffee and doughnuts (just for bringing a boat along!)  There were all kinds of good boats – a lot of great canoes and sea kayaks, in stitch and glue, cedar strip, and even some wood and canvas beauties.  The wood and canvas folks demonstrated how to steam bend white cedar ribs – made it look as easy as anything.  They also bent some oak stems later with less success, I saw the remains and it looked like they’d been defeated by bad grain in the oak.

Besides the paddling boats, some of my favourites were the Bolger light dories (of course), the 19 foot Bartender, Pat’s PK 20, a rebuilt 1948 Guernsey Falcon and a new dinghy, both lapstrake and built, or rebuilt, by the same exhibitor.  Dan Pence stole the show, though, with his just-finished Light Schooner.  He started by yuloh-ing over from the launch ramp, then dazzled us all sailing around the harbour.  The Light Schooner seemed to accelerate instantly with every puff of wind, and fairly flew along – spinning around on that big dagger board so Dan (ably assisted by his wife) never even hit the dock once!  An incredible boat indeed!

Chuck Gottfried was there with Tabby, his strip built catboat – 17 feet, if I remember rightly.  Chuck is currently building a Chebacco as well, so I must compliment him on his excellent taste in boats!  Unfortunately the Chebacco wasn’t far enough along to bring to Depoe Bay, but should be there next year.

Harvey Golden brought a couple of traditional kayaks, one of them without the skin so we could see how it was lashed together, and he also demonstrated his incredible Eskimo rolling techniques again.  Unfortunately I managed to miss most of this, but after the last time I ran out of superlatives anyway.  Harvey has a great website too, I don’t have the URL but a google search will turn it up for you.

There were other good boats there too, more than I can remember – I’ve been wishing I’d taken some pictures, but fortunately John Kohnen was there with his new digital camera, taking hundreds.  He’s posted a good selection at http://www.boat-links.com/DepoeBay/03/BoatFest-1.html, so go there to see them.

The weather was a bit unsettled on Saturday -- one minute it would be bright sunshine, the next, rain would be pouring down, only to stop as suddenly.  However, it didn’t seem to bother anyone much, and by early afternoon it had straightened itself out and stayed sunny the rest of the day.  Which was good, because we were able to sit down in Wayward Lass for a while, and drink some of Chuck Gottfried’s beer.  Chuck introduced his brother Roland, and a few others soon came by.  In the end there were seven or eight of us in the cockpit, enjoying the good life!

Once we were all rested and refreshed, there was just time to check out one or two more boats before going up to Gracie’s B&B for the exhibitors’ reception, where they fed us finger food and a variety of Oregon wines.  Actually, I only sampled the Cabernet, but it was excellent.  A few exhibitors addressed the group, but the star turn was our hostess Gracie, who gave a great talk about Depoe Bay, the boat show, how good the food was at the Sea Hag, and sundry other local subjects.  About 7:00, the B&B folks needed the room back for their paying guests, so the party moved to various restaurants, to consume more food and drink, and continue the Great Boat Debate.

Next morning was dry, and promised a fine, sunny day – not only that, but there were no restrictions in force for the harbour entrance!  At all!  This was a mixed blessing to us, because we had to be on the road before noon, and its always easier to leave when its raining.  However, we looked forward to making the most of the morning.

Things semi-officially kicked off for the day with a lone bagpiper making sure no one overslept, then Dad and I went for another sail.  Except for being sunny, I don’t think things were very much different, but we knew what to expect this time, and were able to enjoy.  The wind was from the southeast, which meant it blew straight from the harbour mouth towards the buoys, giving us a good run out to the second buoy, that marks the 100 foot or 16 fathom (deep) line.  There were several sea lions sunning themselves on this one, they pretty well ignored us as we sailed around them.

We had to beat back directly into the wind, which was fading fast (not the swell though, it carried on going up and down like an elevator).  With the sun right behind the harbour, it was hard to pick out the bell buoy, but binoculars helped.  After a couple of tacks we reached and passed it, but by then there the wind was so weak that it wasn’t worth trying to sail closer in, so we started the motor again – only one pull this time.  We were fairly blasé about the entrance this time, but were surprised by the strength of the current flowing out with the ebb, just like a river.

We went straight to the launch ramp, and got Wayward Lass hauled out and packed up before going around to the sea wall again to say “so long” to the folks.  It was hard to be leaving early on such a nice day, but needs must, and all that, so just after 11:30 we pulled out for home, arriving there some 492 miles and12 hours later.

A great weekend – many thanks to Jack Brown and all his fellow organizers!  See you again next year.