Repairs and Relaxations

Greetings All!

We are making progress on figuring out how to get Rikki-tikki out of the water in order to fix the strut and whatever other problems have occurred as a result of the encounter with the unknown object out there. Some nice folks came down the dock when we arrived (and we are a very long way out at the very end all by ourselves!) and we got to talking. He is a sailor, she is not, they are just friends. They are both in their seventies, we think. He singlehanded back from Mexico recently, taking 24 days offshore, out and back in at the Columbia River. Coasties had to help him in at the end- it was a rough trip. Anyway, they said they'd be happy to drive us around to find a place to haul and work on the boat, so we took them up on their kind offer. Velma drove us over to Astoria on the Oregon side and all around the docks and shoreline following leads we'd pick up from folks we'd talk to.

We came across a boat ramp in Hammond with a shop and marine store, very small, but you never know what kind of info you can get from talking to people hanging around boats. Turns out the guy in the shop had a big trailer out back just sitting in the weeds. He said that, if we thought we could make it work, we were free to modify it as we liked to carry Rikki-tikki. When we were ready, he'd use his diesel pickup to move the trailer and the boat up to a grassy area next to his shop where we could do the necessary repairs. Wow. He told us where to tie up at the little dock while we customized the trailer. This place, Hammond near Fort Clatsop, is only about 9 miles up the River. There is a prop shop close by and other marine services, plus a small Costco and a FredMeyer store.

We did find a second option, much more expensive and difficult to get to, up in Aberdeen on a river above Grays Harbor. It's about 75 miles away. We'd have to sail most of the way, though we are a sailboat. The channel across Grays Harbor is narrow and then we'd have to go up the river and have two bridges open for us. We've done bridges before, so no big deal. The place has a big marine railway system that can take us out for $600; they can do the work too. If our attempts at doing it ourselves fail, we can fall back on this option.

There is a local area shuttle bus that, on some legs, is free. Other routes are very low cost. We can get from Ilwaco to Astoria on the south side in Oregon for 50¢, even all the way north to Aberdeen from Hammond. The shuttle is free to go out to "the peninsula" where there is a Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center, the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse and the North Head Lighthouse, and on up to Long Beach. They claim to have the world's longest beach at 25 miles and one can drive along the sand. There will be a big sand sculpture contest held next weekend. In June, they host an international kite contest and are home to to the World Kite Museum. There is a lot of activity and preparation in the area for the big Lewis & Clark Bicentennial in November. Fort Clatsop is where the expedition spent the winter. The low-cost shuttle bus is part of the promotion.

This area reminds us of how Sausalito was back in the sixties when the fishing industry was failing apart and it became an artist colony. There are many art galleries and artist's residence/studios. Charter boat fishing seems healthy, though we were told there used to be 300 charter boats where there are now only about 60. They have a large sturgeon fishery along with salmon and what they call "bottom fish"- rockfish, halibut, ling cod. The WA Fish & Game haunt the docks daily measuring each fish as the boats come in, counting them and collecting any tags. The harbor is fairly busy with activity, though there are few sailboats. We enjoyed the summer Saturday Market along the waterfront. One of the galleries showcases photography by Bruce Peterson and Wendy Peterson. Their work is excellent and we purchased a small photograph of a stormy Cape Disappointment as a remembrance of our experience here.

For those of you who are wondering about how we came to choose "Rikki-tikki-tavi" for the name of our boat...

Rikki-tikki-tavi is a children's story written by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book series. If you didn't read it as a child and would like to, just type Rikki-tikki-tavi into the Google search engine on the internet and, besides our website, many links to the text of the story will come up. The character of the mongoose, Rikki-tikki, is the inspiration for and the embodiment of the character of our boat. Darzee is a vociferous tailor-bird in the story who warns Rikki-tikki that the cobra, Nagaina, is looking for him. Darzee is what we named our dinghy. We find the story charming and have printed several copies as a booklet to give to those who are especially kind to us along the way. Because the mongoose, Rikki-tikki-tavi, was a male, we refer to our boat in the masculine instead of the traditional feminine. It fits him much better.

Rikki-tikki's motto, and that of all mongooses, is "Run and find out". And that's what we three are doing.

Clark & Nina aboard the sailing trimaran "Rikki-tikki-tavi"