New Year’s Eve Sail on the Columbia River 2008
Our car buried in snow.
After two weeks of record cold and snowfall in Portland, Oregon, with a few days that we couldn’t even get out of our driveway and a rare white Christmas, we finally got a melt off enough that we could get down to check on Cinnamon on Saturday the 27th.
Hayden Bay after snow.
She rode out the snow and wind storms with no problems. I had spent some time winterizing her the week before the storms started, but the power had stayed on at the marina so everything was fine except for some broken waterlines under the dock. By Wednesday, New Year’s Eve the temperature was back in the high forties and there was a break between storms so we couldn’t resist putting the jenny back on and going for one last sail in 2008 just to get a quick sailing fix.
We had a nice South wind that varied from 5 to 10 knots so we had just enough sail so move us upriver on a beam reach at a leisurely pace. There weren’t any other boats out when we first got out and then Balancing Act, an Erickson 35 sailboat that is also at Hayden Bay came out. They raised full sail and quickly caught up to us. We cruised upriver almost to buoy 14. The clouds were closing in again from the South so we headed back to the marina, got the headsail back down and flake up the covers put back on just as the next storm started to move in. As we came back into the marina we were greeted by a sealion.
Buckets of rain fell New Year’s Day day so we will have to choose another day for our first sail of 2009.
January 3rd, 2009 at 8:01 am
Happy New Year Cinnamon! Glad to hear you are enjoying your Chinook so much. I just wanted to say hello as we too are happy sailors of a Chinook 34 (Hull # 50 – Shadow) and surprisingly are located just a few miles downstream of you in St Helens. Your site is terrific, great job, and by the way Cetol is doing a great job in protecting our teak toe rail as well.