The pics in this post are just a hint – many more on flickr – you can see them at the bottom of this page.
So … What a Weekend! It is the highest I have ever sailed by far – about 2500 to 3000ft above sea level.
A very nice bunch of folks. And got to meet BobWes (from my forum), John Kohnen (the author of the “mother of all nautical links”), Jon Kowitz and Andrew Linn (puddle duckers that sailed in the Texas 200 so triumphantly) David Luckhardt (who I missed in S.F.) and a whole bunch of other boat people and a swag of interesting boats.
I had selected pics of all the boats, but since BobWes has done a nice job of it above … I have been able to select my more favourite pics.
It was a long and slow climb up into the mountains. I actually did not realise how steep the grades were until we started back at the end of the weekend. The mountain range is the Cascades about 2 hours East of Portland, Oregon where the Graybeals live and thrive.
We had PDRacer #77 “Shredder” on the roof and the GIS on the trailer behind. Graybeal likes to camp comfortably, or it might be a response to how close we are to winter.
The car looks low but it has self adjusting air shocks.
We saw this sign near the base of the climb and went straight past.
Later I found out it had quite a good school while reading the local paper. But I did miss out on photos of the “Boring Police Station” and the “Boring Bar and Grill”. But soon after that we started to climb and it was conifers to the left of us, conifers to the right of us.
We went down a couple of side roads … the camping area …
And the lake and the launching ramp.
Edge of the ramp is rocky as is the beach. The process of part emptying the lake ready for the spring thaw is underway and the water is a couple of feet down. The area was forest and a dam was built. When you sail you can still see the stumps of the trees 5 or 10 ft below the surface. The old river course was on the far side so is significantly deeper along that edge.
This was the collection of boats after we had set up camp. Cost was $17/night for the site.
This was the collection of even more antique objects …
As the sun went down further I got a shot of Andrew Linn’s mightly “Salem Electron”, which is the OZ based PDRacer that performed so well as part of the group in the Texas 200 mile race.
The next day I had a look at the boats in more detail. Have a look at the full flickr series (link at the top).
This is Pat’s modified Michelak. It is used by him and his wife for cruising. I have an interview with him telling how and why he modified the boat- I am trying to find out how to set it up as a streaming audio clip.. Apparently there are lots of great cruising waters in or near Oregon – The Sacramento Delta is huge with hundreds of kilometres of navigable water.
These rivers are really huge. You look at a pic of the whole state and the rivers have a measureable width on the maps – not just a blue line like in ours.
The next is one of my two favourites. It was restored by Greg Stoll and probably is a plan from Popular Mechanics or one of those magazines. It really was a nice job and gave a real sense of a Utility boat. Everything was very practical.
In the Morning Andrew Linn gave me a rundown on the local trees, showing me the diff between a Douglas Fir and a Hemlock. The fir tops are straight and the ends of the branches have leaves all around.
The Core sound was a bit of a hero over the weekend. It helped tow the GIS back in when the woodscrews that held the rudder pintles on pulled out (bolts specified). We were heading back in the right direction … but it seemed best to accept a tow as it was offered as the wind was very changeable on the lake. It also saved another traditional boat that was from another campsite. I was aboard for that rescue.
This is a really nice pic of Jerry and the offending mutt rowing out toward disaster. The strange thing (to me) is nobody thought of jumping on the centreboard and getting the boat upright again and bailing it out. But maybe they do it a different way here.
I was quite excited to see CRAWDAD that night. I had only ever heard of them on “The Beverly Hillbillies” where they ate “Crawdads”, “Grits and Jowls” and “Fatback”. Buddy Ebson the star was a multihull pioneer with Rudi Choy catamarans in Hawaii in the ’60s.
(trivia is my middle name – and the Coots … I never met such a trivial bunch in my whole life – hope that reads OK as a joke)
Being vegetarian, I am not even sure if these are the same or different from our “Yabbies”.
This is a camplight pic of the Kowitz family. Jon brought his kids and two PDRacers to the weekend. He also went across the USA to go in the Texas200. His “Ranger” is notable for having a lie down cabin for when the weather is bad.
Bobwes is the sweetest guy in the universe. He cooked the slighly scarily named “Dump Cake” on the Saturday night and David and I missed out because I was cooking some dinner and David came to fetch me for the cake. So he cooked another one for us for breakfast. It was so cool. You take some cake mix, a can of apple sauce, some sliced apple and some slices of butter and dump them in a Dutch oven. He puts 6 coals under and 6 coals on the lid. After 20 min he opens it and stirs it. the sheet of paper stops it from sticking.
Was “Heaven on a Stick”.
Some people have extra sensory perception about such things so John Kohnen and Gerry turned up from right up the other end of the campsite as the lid was opened. That’s about 300metres.
Pat (one of the flounders (sic) of the Coots) gave me a Coots Flag and declared me an Honorary Coot. (Correction from D Graybeal … the coots are so little into formality “No rules, no fees, no door prizes” that there is no possibility of “honorary”. I am a full coot.
I got a bit brave that afternoon and took my voice recorder out in Thorne’s((his real name for tax purposes is David Luckhardt) boat and we talked about the boat.
It was built as part of a boatbuilding school by Simon Watts. Some of you will know that very early in the wooden boat revival that Simon and Ian Oughtread were two that were pushing modern traditional boats. It is a nice interview about the boat and covers black powder.
Thorne is David Graybeal’s evil twin. OR have I got that round the wrong way. Anyway .. on shore it was frightening. Maybe their mum shops for both of them.
We left soon after the next photo.
This was the last weekend for Timothy Lake. As we left the Rangers were wrapping plastic over the park signs and locking the gates.
The lake is about half drained ready for the spring thaw when the snow melts.
Where we camp gets 2ft and sometimes much more snow and the lake freezes over too.
It was a great weekend. I would like to thank all the Coots and, in particular David Graybeal and his family, who have been most triffically nice. If anyone needs some woodworking/cabinetmaking/boatbuilding done in Portland … he is the man!
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Thanks so much.
MIK
