Category: General

January 30, 2012 — Portland, OR

Pearl has arrived at her new base at the Watergate Yachting Center in Kemah, TX, about half way between Houston and Galveston. She’s off the truck and back on blocks at South Texas Yacht Services, under the care of John Blakeway. She’s covered with road filth, been driven through snow, then run into something that ripped out her port side gate stanchion, Continue reading “What a long, strange trip it’s been …”

October 10, 2011 — Portland, OR

There is a lot that I love about living in Portland. The rivers (Columbia and Wilamette) are two of them. I’d always wanted to get on the Willamette and do a quick tour of the city front. It makes me thinking of cruising the sea wall /water front in San Francisco. Continue reading “A quick trip up the Wilamette River”

July 24, 2011 — Portland, OR

Pearl’s first overnight was pretty anti-climactic but very fun. It was a quick trip to Government Island on the Columbia with my buddy Joe and Jesse and Toni from Wind River.

Joe, ever-practical-both-feet-on-the-ground-creator-of-order-from-chaos was up for the weekend to install radios on Pearl — subject of a different post. Being a longtime boater, and having realized that I wasn’t as familiar with Pearl as I should be, he suggested we anchor out for the evening. A light supper on the river. Test out the anchor. Check out the boat. Figure our what we are missing. Then, prep to cross the Columbia Bar.

Never being one to turn down a challenge, the plan to do this was pulled together in about an hour: beer, food, and other supplies purchased,  Jesse and Toni, off  Wind River, Pearl’s neighbor at the marina were recruited to join and raft up. Cast off the lines! We were off.

Jesse and Toni took the conservative path and motored up the river under the I-5 bridge, and to the anchoring spot. Since there was a light wind out of the west, I figured this would be a great opportunity to try out the asymmetric spinnaker again. What a mistake. An hour later, in the gathering dusk, we repacked the spinnaker after a bunch of spinnaker fouls by yours truly, and chased off after Wind River.

By the time we got to where Wind River had dropped the hook, it was dark. That was when I realized something like a spotlight would be useful to have on board. A flashlight, while handy for not tripping over stuff wasn’t quite enough for setting an anchor. Anyway, we made a close pass at Wind River to check the current (running at a couple of knots) depth and swinging room, and then prepared to drop our hook and raft up.

Rafting up was interesting given the current. What we did after a couple of tries dropping anchor and backing up was to drop anchors parallel to each other,  drifted back, and the use the current to steer the boats together so the anchors were set in a shallow ‘V’. Toni, who’d never done this before (and who later discovered that none of us had either) made the astute observation “You know, y’all are frikkin’ cowboys, trying to do this crap at night?!?” Oddly enough, Jesse used to ride bulls — a bona fide cowboy!

Dinner simple and easy: heat and serve pre-made stuff from Whole Foods. Lounging in the cockpit after, there were relatively few lights, and if one stretched one’s imagination, we tried really hard imagine we were at some exotic anchorage. The freeway noise from the I-205 bridge, however, made that pretty close to impossible. I wasn’t quite imaginative enough to convert the sound of downshifting trucks into breaking surf.

The next morning, Toni cooked up the perfect breakfast: bacon, eggs, and toasted bagels. Joe and Jesse, fortified by Toni’s breakfast decided to check out my inflatable dinghy that Wind River had been towing on the off chance that we wanted to get to Government Island. Interestingly the dinghy had lost some of it air and taken on some water — which Joe verified by stepping into the dinghy and finding himself ankle deep in water, soaking his spiffy new topsiders and drenching his only pair of socks. Joe, let’s say, was not amused.

But, Joe being Joe, made the best of a bad situation and started to bail out the dinghy. Muttering under his breath about how it was that I had managed to “manipulate” him into the dinghy while staying aboard Pearl sipping my tea while he got wet, mutter-mutter-grumble. Suddenly there was a startled squawk from Joe “Dude! Why is your dingy making bad noises? It’s hissing!!! I’m going to sink! Get me out of here!!!” I just about spilled my coffee laughing.

As it turned out, the reason the dinghy was leaking air was because one of valves hadn’t been firmly closed after we inflated the boat, giving rise to a slow leak that was made worse by Joe’s weight in the boat. The problem was easily fixed. No harm. No foul. No one got really wet. It was all good.

Shortly after retrieving a somewhat skittish Joe, we raised anchor and headed back to the marina to install HF radio gear that Joe had generously donated to the Pearl.

 

April 24, 2011 — Portland, OR

This was the day I met Pearl for the first time. It was bright and sunny. A perfect day to be outside. My cousin Chris, his wife Julian, and two kids were visiting from LA for a week. I’d hurt my back and was hobbling around.  I had to find something to do, preferably outside, that wasn’t too active, but that would keeps his two boys engaged. My friend Andrew had been asking me to join him to a boat show somewhere on the river. I figured what the heck. Give it a shot. Continue reading “A Chance Meeting”

May 29, 2011 — Portland, OR

Pearl’s maiden voyage under my command. What the heck I had done? Why on earth would a sane (in my opinion, but other opinions vary) person buy an expensive cruising boat that would fit best in the Caribbean and then park it on a river, and how the heck would the evolving dream of sailing her in the Caribbean materialize. And then there was the issue of sailing her. I was pretty rusty, the Columbia river was at a near record high, about 20 ft over low water, there was a strong current, and a my first time out would be with very inexperienced (but capable) crew. Not my smartest move, perhaps.

My niece Shari and best buddy Jaywant had come up from the SF Bay Area to support me on this most auspicious occasion. Cita, Brandee, and Vida (Brandee’s daughter) were joining as well. I was still very unfamiliar with the boat. I had just two test sails under my belt with her. But a boat’s a boat, and I figured I had enough experience with boats and it would be easy enough to manage provided nobody fell over board. Yeah.

The day was perfect, a bright sunny Portland day. The previous couple of days had been rainy and gloomy. But the day was bright crisp, and relatively warm. We had coolers packed with food and beverages — Jaywant can always be counted on to handle that. We were committed.

The “sailing” started off by with the obligatory toast to Pearl, the local water deities, and our good fortune to be able to get out on the river on such a pretty boat, on such a pretty day,  and with such great company. Leaving the dock was a cinch. Fire up the engines, cast off the lines, turn the wheel to starboard, let Pearl drift away from the dock — that was it.

From there, it was a piece of cake. The river was so high running aground wasn’t an issue. Pearl just did her thing. There wasn’t much to the sailing. Pearl’s roller furling made raising and furling the sails a non-event. Since Shari, Cita, and I had been sailing together before, it was easy to rely on them to handle the sails under my instruction. We made a couple of runs up and down the river. Easy-peasey.

Our plan once back at the dock was to have a celebratory dinner on board. Jaywant was looking forward to this. Being unfamiliar with the boat, we couldn’t figure out how to get the microwave going — there is a second breaker panel that found later that switches on the plugs — to warm up the food. Further, the boat was missing stuff like paper towels, napkins, etc., and not wanting to break anything I really didn’t want to fiddle around too much. So we ended up packing everything up and headed back to my house for dinner and a relaxing evening.