Growing old in Newport

Newport, Oregon, USA

We have stopped counting the days now.  Weeks would be more appropriate.  It has been almost 3 weeks since we left Nanaimo and we are still only on the Oregon coast.  Not that it is a bad place to be; we are just get anxious to be on our way.

The problem with leaving is two-fold.  First, we want some decent weather out on the ocean and, second, we need the Yaquina bar to be open for our exit from Newport.  Here is a picture of the bar to give you some idea of what it looks like.

A third issue came up last night as we had a particularly low tide and found ourselves hard aground in our slip in the marina.  The area is all dredged to about 7 feet at "low" water, but using the US method of measuring low water, the recent low tides in the evening have been up to 1.2 feet below low water.  Not a big deal but a bit disconcerting as we are not used to being on a boat that is listing to one side at the dock.  Of course, we certainly cannot leave the slip if the boat is stuck in the sand.

From the looks of things right now, we should be able to get out of here either tomorrow morning or the day after.  We just need everything to line up - tide, current, weather, Jupiter, Mars, etc.  Our current plan is to head for Brookings next (still in Oregon but nearer the California border).

Still, we have to say that Newport has been a great place to weather the storms.  Nice people, inexpensive, a nice bayfront area, and even some entertainment.  Over this Columbus Day weekend there has been a fishing derby (U-Da-Man), with lots of little boats full of anglers coming and going.  Now that the weekend is over, things are pretty quiet again.

The transient dock is much busier than it was a week ago with a few more boats coming in out of the heavy seas.  A couple of the sailboats here are heading north for Seattle, although I cannot imagine why.

Hopefully the next post will be from places further south.

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