So, as I was saying in another thread about what to do over the turkey day
weekend, my sweetie and I spent it celebrating our 31st anniversary by
traveling up the Washington Coast to take a look at some of the Port
facilities up there. This is kinda long, so if'n yer not interested in
this kind of stuff you might want to skip over this post ...
Day 1 (Wed., November 26th). The wife and I were going to get an early start
cause we figured the trip to West Port, WA. via Astoria (to visit with the kids
and the new grand-baby) would make for a long day. Little did I know that
"early" for the wife is getting out of bed at 8:am!!
Stopped in
Astoria to visit our Coastie son, his wife and their precious little bundle of
joy! From there we followed the Washington coast up around Willipa Bay to
West Port. Spent a couple of nights there right on the bay in a little fishing
cabin that was actually a tiny, little, single wide mobile home. Thursday
afternoon (day 2) the storm blew in. 65+ MPH wind gusts throughout the night
with *LOTS* of rain. Kinda fun watching the bay jumping from the deck of the
little cabin. We were sooo close to the water that when the waves broke on
the rocks beneath the deck we were getting salt spray against the windows of
the cabin! Great storm watching day!!!
Got up on Day 3 (Friday) and found the Englund Marine store at West Port. That
has *got* to be Englunds smallest store! Mostly just crab gear and a little
salmon gear ... I didn't see any TUNA! gear at all!! Bought a rain coat so I
could walk the docks and talk to the fishermen there. EVERYBODY was tied to the
boards for the duration of the storm so there were quite a few people to talk
to. About noon we left West Port behind and headed for the Forks/La Push area.
After getting some advice about our planned "yachting"/fishing trip up to
Victoria/Barkley Sound from folks on this board last week we really wanted to
stop in La Push to check out the port facilities. We went down to the docks and
as my sweetie sat in the car I proceeded to put on my (new) rain gear and go out
to talk to some of the crabbers there getting ready to go fishing at the first
weather window (which for many of them ended up being Saturday). The guys were
really helpful. Told me the only port harder to get in and out of on the Oregon
or Washington coasts than La Push was Depoe Bay!! They were saying things like
"yeah, you're from Oregon ... you should practice going in and out of Depoe Bay
a couple of time before you come up here. That'll give you an idea of what
crossing the bar here is like ..." I think I have that part covered, having
crossed the bar at Depoe Bay 50 or 60 times in the past couple of years. :smile:
Nice little port with fuel, provisions and a CG presence, but no gear store that
I could find. First two docks as you come into port are for the Indian Fisher-
men ... and in the fifth slip on dock 3 there is a boat that sunk there a couple
of years ago that they still haven't raised ...
On day 4 we traveled further North to Neah Bay. Much larger port facility than
at La Push with a larger CG station and more places to take on stores. They
also had a really nice fuel dock. While at Neah Bay we decided to visit the
furthest point West in the Continental United States by taking the half mile
"hike" out to the end of Cape Flattery. What a cool trail! The Makah Indian
Tribe owns and maintains this trail and they did a *really* nice job on it
with rough hewn ceder bridges over the wet spots on the trail and some really
nice wooden platforms with benches at all the best viewing sites. 'Course, it
helped that Saturday turned out to be such a pretty day! Cool, but lots of
sunshine.
On Day 5 (Sunday, 11/30) was the trip back to Newberg from Forks/La Push. I
gotta tell you, traveling hywy 101 at this time of year is a joy! We would
travel for 10s of miles at a time without seeing another car! The whole area
around the Olympic National Forest is deserted at this time of year!! We made
a couple of side trips on the way home ... we stopped at Ruby Beach and made a
side trip down to the visitor center at the Hoh Rain Forest. Wish we'd had
more time to hike around on the trails there! It's a virgin rain forest and
the trees and moss and other stuff is sooooo cool! :smile:
My take on the Washington Coast? Lots of trees, not many people, nice port
facilities, looks like plenty of great fishing areas and plenty of different
types of museums to visit.
The main purpose of this trip was to look things over before we run the boat
up the coast next summer. Mission accomplished! I got to see what *I* wanted
to see and my sweetie got to see all the stuff *she* wanted to see. I can't
wait for the trip up to Barkley Sound next summer. One day from Depoe Bay to
the Columbia River, one day to La Push and on the third day we'll be at Barkley
Sound doing some exploring/fishing! Yee Haw!! The botttom fishing up there must
be the most excellent in the world with all the little islands and sea mounts they
have up there! I don't suppose we'll go hungry on our trip, anyway!
-assAssin-
EDIT: I forgot, total road miles for the five day trip was 1075. 335 of those
miles were just getting home from La Push/Forks. Nice easy road trip! ; :grin:
[ 12-02-2003, 11:03 AM: Message edited by: fish assassin ]
Exploritory Road Trip (Turkey Day Weekend)
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