Today is Valentine's Day and the loves of my life are Shatoosh and Pashmina. Together we make up a special team and have many adventures. I am making effort everyday to implement planning into my summer cruise. The culmination of a decade of cruising on Shatoosh starting first in the Bay area, the Bay rivers, the Sacramento and San Joaquin Delta, the Lower Columbia, the Willamette and finally the Upper Columbia and Snake Rivers. As I have mentioned before in this blog, by the completion of this trip I will have cruised all the navigable rivers on the West Coast, approximately 70. There may be a few I have missed, but I doubt it.
All the needed charts are installed into my HP mini net book and SEACLEAR II is reading them well and I am becoming more familiar with all the features of this wonderful and free program. I have compiled over 80 charts into 5 groups; 1. is for the Snake and Upper Columbia, 2. is for the Lower Columbia-Bonneville dam to Astoria, 3. is for the Washington Coast, 4. is for the Straits of Juan de Fuca to Olympia and 5. is for the San Juan and the Gulf Islands. Next, I will be creating waypoints that will be saved and used for navigating. Marinas have been selected based on fuel, pump-out,ice and food needs and have been logged in as "positions".
Crew members have been selected: Joyce, my ole sailing buddy from Hawaiian/Delta/Columbia River days and Ann, from many trips on Shatoosh and recently from our trip on the Lady Washington. Linda, is considering following us in her RV Roadtrek and swapping off crew for some river time.
I have decided to have a trucking company(Norgard) haul Shatoosh. While it will be more costly, it will be far simpler. We will haul out in Scappoose Bay, Oregon about 9 nm downriver from the marina where we berth. We will launch on the Snake River at Clarkston,WA/ Lewiston,ID. The Snake being 140 miles to Clarkston-Lewiston. The Columbia from Portland to the Snake is 225 miles for a total of 356 miles.
