Another beautiful day at the coast

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Location: Fort Stevens State Park, Hammond, OR, sites 220 and 284

It was very foggy this morning, but predicted to be in the 80’s.

Wilma made scones for the road, and we headed out to the fishing hole. As Barney and Betty pulled up there was a lady leaving that had a fish in her bag. Same lady Betty saw leaving yesterday with a fish.

You could not even see if there were people out on the river bank because it was so foggy. The guys got geared up and went on out. We could not see where they stopped. Another person left, so Wilma moved their rig to a better location, and sat back and read for a while.

It was starting to clear as Betty and Wilma went out to see what was happening, but the mouth of the river was still thick in fog. We could hear a fog horn and could see a small fishing boat but wondered how it could have such a might blast of fog horn. Then all of a sudden along side the small boat came a large freighter.  Shortly after it passed we could hear more fog horn, and in came another large freighter.

Then a barge pusher came out from up river and just sat. Soon here came a tug pulling a barge, and once in far enough the pusher got in position and there was a lot of clatter as the tug was disconnected and steamed off. The pusher slowly made it’s way up the river. (Okay, I don’t know what it is officially called – it can’t be a tug boat because it doesn’t tug! – maybe it’s a shover!)

The ship report had said there was a luxury yacht coming in too early for us to see, but you wouldn’t have been able to see it anyway because of the fog. It must have been pretty big and fancy. It had six staterooms and cost $34 million.

The ship report is a podcast we can listen to that tells all about what is going and coming on the river today, and what they are carrying. It’s nice to hear that and then see the river traffic.

Still no luck catching, but Barney had a mighty pull and snapped his line, so something must be out there!

We made a quick stop at Taco Bell, and then stopped at Highlands Golf Course. It is a walk only 9 hole course that is a lot of fun. If you aren’t straight on, you have many hills to climb! Barney may have been the only one to not lose a ball on the scrubby hillsides. But we all had fun, even though it was very hot to walk the course today. The back side is closer to the ocean, so was somewhat cooler. There is a pretty good hill to climb as you go to the 9th hole, and by then you are drooping anyway, but we all made it.

What a great day we had. Hope the same for all of you.