Day of departure:

07/25/06
I got to see the girl a bit before she left for work and I left for the boat trip. I went to the bank after loading up the car and wrapping up the last few details around the house. On my way back from the bank I realized I had both sets of keys to my cars and that was going to cause her problems when she wanted to work on the fence. So I dropped them off and went to the Sea Scout Base. I unloaded my stuff and put it on the boat. Tim C and some guy I didn’t know were the only ones there. I got myself all set up so that when I was needed I would be done with my stuff. Harve showed up soon after me. When Jim L got there I started doing what ever he needed. I unloaded 90% of his stuff and brought it to the float next to the boat. Don S and his family came in after that and we worked on getting things ready. I had his son Tommy help me move life jackets off the boat and to the sail loft. Tommy recruited his younger brother to help also. When Bill got there at ten he was amazed the boat wasn’t ready to go. He started pushing things along. I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off. I got most of the things they needed done and we got underway. We got underway late but still made it out of the base without any problems. We were trying to hit high tide. The water is higher this year then most so we made it out just fine. We made a fuel stop at Portland Yacht Club. Then started down the river to Astoria. It was fun to have Don and his family with us. Tommy was better at the watch bells then my Sea Scouts are. He had a lot of fun with them. It was good to see him having so much fun. Don’s sons were overall well behaved. There were some folks that were a bit worried about that when they came. It meant a lot to Tommy to get to go and it was good for him to get to spend time with his dad. Tommy told me as he gets older he gets to come to Sea Scouts more often. That makes him happy. He likes boats. He also likes trains and things. His little brother is more interested in cars.
I took the first helm shift so I could relax and not have to worry about anything else for a couple hours after the fuel stop. I got us just past St. Helens. Then after that I ate lunch and ran around and helped out with a few projects. Phil built the new BBQ that Christy had bought for the trip. I gave him a hand at times. After we dropped Don and his family off at Rainer I started working on the plotter software on Jim’s new laptop. That was good fun. It also made everyone happy that someone knew how to run it. I made us a course for the rest of the way up to Astoria. I enjoyed the rest of the ride up to Astoria a lot. The weather was great and the river is very pretty. It was dark by the time we got to Astoria. Cruising in the dark makes things a bit crazy. It makes it almost easier in places but when we made it to Astoria there was so much traffic and all the lights were hard to distinguish from the city lights. We had lots of help on the bridge to get us through. It went just fine.
We got into Astoria around 11:15 or so. Christy and I made dinner. We made ribeye steaks with my whiskey butter sauce. That went over well. I needed to make more sauce but oh well next time I guess. We all went to bed and got up kind of late since our exit window over the bar was around 2:45 pm.