10/15 - 10/29 - 2017 Snake/Columbia River C-Dory Cruise

I hope you guys will doing an Active Captain reviews for the marinas you visited. Boaters doing reviews on the Columbia and Snake River marinas have been few and are usually focused more on "big boats" than for our kinds of boats and boating.

I'm still bugged we were unable to go. If it works for us next year I'll want your reviews and thoughts on how you would do it differently after doing it once. Earlier in October? Shorter days/ longer days? What would you do different?

Chuck
 
Chuck, read my earlier post regarding my personal feelings on the "River Run". Longer time to allow more stops along the way, etc. As for Active Captain reviews, I might try to do some once I'm home and caught up. But basically, Kinnewick was the best. They wanted our business, were quite friendly and helpful, and it was a pretty nice setup, and inexpensive. Cathlemet was a cool place, and while we checked in after hours, they seemed to be helpful and a nice setup. Lyons Ferry was pretty nice also, but an older dock. I think we could have asked for electricity and been put in a covered dock, for a higher price. Camas could have been nice had they allowed us to stay in closer on seasonal docks that were vacated. Port of Arlington was nice, but no showers. And a train that went by frequently blowing it's horn. Colby
 
Today I rode the motorcycle to Portland. Beautiful Fall day; crisp, early foggy, cloud layers laying in the mountains, burning off to sunny, light breeze and warm. Crossing the I-205 bridge it was a gorgeous view of Mt Hood and the river. Breeze out of the east at less than 5 kn, quit a few boats, no clouds, and hardly a ripple. Big change from yesterday. What a difference a day can make.

I'm with Chuck, wanting to learn what I can for future reference. I don't use Active Captain, but I know lots of folks who do and for them it is very helpful. At some point I will probably graduate to that too.

Thanks again to you all, and stay safe.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon
 
The California contingent of this epic adventure pulled out of Astoria this morning with their boats in tow. Lew was already on his way back to Montana Sunday with Cat Claw and was seen in passing by Jim, Floyd and Bernie who were headed back from Lewiston, ID, with the trailers for Pounder, Far C'r and Vega. Colby was last last sighted on his way back to Wisconsin with Midnight Flyer after leaving here Saturday morning.

Lois and I were treated to a wonderful dinner and visit last evening with Jim and Kath, Floyd and Eiko, and Bernie for which we are very grateful. It was wonderful meeting you all and hearing your tales of this and other cruises.

Thank you all so much for letting all of us share in this adventure with you!
 
Just got home, and unloaded the boat and truck. Tomorrow I'll start the cleanup and winterization process. :cry: Along with some trailer maintenance. Cold trip home. Spent the night indoors with the C-Brat friends in Couer D Alene. And had a good visit with them! The bed and shower (and warmth) felt great!!! Then the next night found a nice national forest campground on hwy 212 near Ashland Montana. (Red Shale.) 25 degrees that night. Next night at a Cabelas in Mitchell, SD, 18 degrees! My little Webasto heater kept the boat around 60 both nights! :D Drove thru some Fog in Idaho and Montana. Then some blowing snow in Montana and S. Dakota. But home safe now! This was a great trip to finish out my stats for this year. 16,000 miles on the trailer, and 238 hours on the Outboard. That was since March. All safe and uneventful trips, other than the fun and enjoyment. I did pick up a screw in one of my trailer tires after the California Delta cruise, on the Lonliest highway in America (somewhere east of Fallon, NV), but that was an easy fix with a plug and air fill! Great year in my book!!! Colby
 
TyBoo
Where does the "time stamp" or the "time posted" come from? I've seen times later than the time I was reading the post and I've seen posts out of order, ie a later post has an earlier time stamp than the post ahead of it in apparent chronological order. I first I thought it was the individual's computer setting the time, but I've seen east coast west coast mix also, so it does not appeart to make sense.

Chuck
 
Kath and I just pulled into the driveway. We are happy to be home safe and sound.

The trip for us was 2,100 land miles and 495 water miles, 18 days all total - through a vast and vacant landscape. We slept on our boat last night at an RV park near Lake Shasta as they shut down Interstate 5 in both directions due to a forest fire.

It was a fantastic journey with wonderful C-Dory people, each making significant contributions. We could not have done this trip alone as it was much too big and complex.

I will post more later laying out some valuable trip details if others want to replicate our journey. It is a very worthwhile expedition cruise, obtainable on a C-Dory.

Special thanks to Floyd and Eiko (Far C'R), Bernie and Bob (Vega), Colby (Midnight Flyer), and Lewis (Cat Claw). This was a hardy group that was very competent and never cracked in any way.

Also a thanks to Mike (Tyboo) and his girlfriend Lois. Mike was a wonderful host to our group on our arrival to the PNW. We appreciate the ride from East Basin to West Basin on our boat retrieval. Finally, the crabs you gave us were a big hit. Very generous of you Mike.

We also want to acknowledge Chuck and Penny (Two Bears) who did so much upfront planning to help make this trip a success and who came out to meet us on our departure from Hells Gate State Park. We were so sorry that you both could not make the journey.
 
Jim, Great to know you are home safe. And hope home is safe. Seems like half of California is burning, or has, lately.

Thank you for all your hard work, planing and perseverance to make this trip possible for the rest of us. I am looking forward to your notes for future planning.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

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Below is summarized a day by day itinerary for the Snake River/Columbia River Cruise. Some key takeaways. Plan on at least 9 water days of which 2 could be contingency wind days. The weather changes fast out there on the immense bodies of water, and wind will slow one down. It would be difficult to do this trip safely and enjoyably in less than about 9 days total on the water.

I put about 45 engine hours on my 22 foot C-Dory doing this trip. The total nautical miles measured on my GPS was about 370 Nautical Miles. Many days I kept my engine running the entire day from 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM. I kept my engine running in the Locks because I wanted to make sure it would start quickly when leaving!

There are good facilities throughout most of the trip. Most of the marinas are quite reasonable dollar wise. Many charged just $10 a night.

Take this trip with a fellow C-Dory friend. These are big waters and a lot can go wrong, especially in the Gorge Area of the Columbia, though we were quite lucky and had no breakdowns or incidents.

Bring good size bumpers for the Locks. The ball bumpers work particularly good in the locks. Have good mooring lines.

Take the trip one-way, down river. This gives you an extra approximately 2 NMPH over the ground. More importantly it helps with wind management.

Go in the month of October when you have the opportunity to have the wind coming from the East. Our worst day had 30 MPH winds at our backs going downstream. It was a little hairy but manageable in a C-Dory that can punch above its weight. If we were taking that kind of wind head on we would have been in a real mess.

Get a good set of hard charts such as the Evergreen Pacific River Cruising Atlas. Some legs of the two rivers were uncharted on my Navionics chart plotter.

Below Bonneville Dam it is tidal, with current, and wind. Plenty of variables to mix it up pretty fast.

Have someone along (like Colby) with good radar, AIS, and a fog hailer. It can go to near zero visibility pretty fast out there.

Our longest day was 75 NM and our shortest day was 23.5 NM. We averaged about 50 NM per day to complete the trip in 7 travel days out of 9 on the water days. We actually planned for 10 days on the water but we completed the trip one day faster than originally planned.

We usually got up about 6:00 AM each morning and left the dock at about 7:30 AM. We would usually always end our days before 3:00 PM. We always traveled in the daylight.


Day 1
Hells Gate State Park to
Lyons Ferry Marina

• 75 NM
• 2 Locks
• 20.9 Gallons
• Fuel/Showers/Electricity

Day 2/3

Lyons Ferry Marina to
Kennewick Marina

• 54 NM
• 2 Locks
• 15.0 Gallons
• Fuel/Showers/Electricity
• Used 1 of 2 wind days

Day 4/5

Kennewick Marina to
Port of Arlington

• 74.6 NM
• 1 Lock
• 21.4 Gallons
• Fuel – No Showers/Electricity
• Used 2 of 2 wind days

Day 6

Port of Arlington to
Port of Hood River

• 63.6 NM
• 2 Locks
• 17.0 Gallons
• Fuel – Showers closed for season, No Electricity


Day 7

Port of Hood River to
Port of Camas/Washou

• 42.1 NM
• 1 Lock
• 11.9 Gallons
• Fuel/Showers/Electricity

Day 8

Port of Camas/Washou to
Cathlamet

• 37.6 NM
• 0 Locks
• Fuel/Showers/Electricity

Day 9

Cathlamet to
West Basin, Astoria

• 23.5 NM
• 0 Locks
• Fuel/Showers/Electricity


The eight locks on this trip are really quite interesting and add to the enjoyment of the journey. Partially because we were a fleet of 5 vessels we never had to wait too long to transverse any of the locks. We would call ahead on the cell phone to each lock telling them we were coming in about an hour. This seemed to work well. When we got closer to the locks we talked to the Locks on VHF Channel 14.

This trip is a pretty remote excursion. It was not until we got below Bonneville Dam that we began to really see any people. There was very little small craft or even commercial traffic upstream of Bonneville.
 
Thanks again Jim. I just copied that summary and some other notes from this thread into a word file for future reference.

Thanks too to Colby for all the photos and trip updates in real time.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

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Great adventure! Sorry we couldn't make it.

Questions: If a person wanted to spend more time on the Snake R. leg of the trip, are there places to anchor or tie up besides Lyons Ferry? For example, near the mouth of the Palouse River or at Charbonneau Park?

jd
 
I know there is dock, mooring and anchorage at Chief Timothy State park, not far down river from Lewiston and have stayed there, and there are a few places to duck out of the main river, I think it is Truax Bay, and then Wawawai county park just above the Lower Granite dam. The river is pretty narrow for much of that run, maybe just 1/4 mile or so wide, with pretty steep hills on both sides. There are more "duck in" places as you get down closer to Little Goose dam. and then closer to Starbuck too. I don't remember mooring or anchoring around the Palouse confluence, but there is a state park there "Lyons Ferry" and a fair amount of protected waters, mostly busy with skiers from what I remember.There is also a Corp of Engineers park on the south side of the river above the Lower Monumental dam that had a nice protected area. Charbonneau Park, down closer to the Columbia confluence, and just above Ice harbor dam has a nice launch and mooring area that is out of the main river current.

It has been several years so things have probably changed but that may help.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

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JD, we were making so much progress, I can't really remember, but I think there were. Just get off the main channel. As an example, there were some coves in Lewiston that I believe one could anchor or tie up. In fact, because I wanted to pick up some more cold medicine, and didn't feel like walking the 5 miles, I took my boat up the river from Hell's Gate and found a little cove with a boat ramp in Clarkston. There were a couple of spots that I could select from to beach the boat and tie it up while I walked the 3 blocks to a Walgreens. I don't know if I could have overnighted at that specific place, but I think if you look at the charts, you could find some possibilities.

Colby
 
Jim Gibson":13ce1ong said:
.... I kept my engine running in the Locks because I wanted to make sure it would start quickly when leaving!
....
Click to expand...

I thought the standard procedure was to turn motors off once you are settled in a lock to avoid the accumulation of exhaust gases. Yeah, one C-dory in a big lock is not much of a risk, but a smaller lock full of running boats (e.g. Ballard) might be a different story.
 
Technically speaking, yes, they do ask for motors off. Seemed from what I saw, I was the only one turning it off... :) But many don't in these larger locks, and in fact on the Mississippi when things are slow, sometimes the lockmasters will let you just "float" in the middle, whereby you do need to keep your motor running. Also suppose to wear PFD's in the lock, but only one, maybe two, lock masters specifically stated to be sure we had them on. I've just gotten in the habit when going thru locks of putting it on. Too easy to fall over the gunnel while hooking up lines or just leaning over to look at something.... One other word of advice/warning, as we did have a few times where lockmasters had to say something. Be sure to stay on the lock side of the wall between it and the dam. The area in front of the damn is a restricted area where no boats are allowed. It is very easy to float into that restricted area if you are not paying attention while fendering up. And if you have other watercraft or tows coming in or out, stay off to the land side to give them plenty of room. If you've never locked through, it really is pretty simple and easy. Just read any of the advice papers put out on it, and ask the lock master if you are unsure about something. Colby
 
Far C'r and Vega are back home as well. Driving back in to LA after so long in the boonies was quite a shock. This trip has been one of the highlights of our lives and the reason we all have a boat, thank you again Pounder for being the instigator and orchestrator of this adventure. Otherwise it would be quite possible that we all would have gone on dreaming about it but never doing it.

Tyboo, was really great meeting you. Eiko made the most fantastic crab salad last night and crab omelette this morning, man o man! Also it was great to meet Two Bears and Hunky Dory along the way.

My only suggestion on the trip if I was to do it again or if some one was planning is to have more time, preferably unlimited time to truly explore the river.

I am going to start working on a video soon and will be posting a link for people to contribute or share photos and videos within a couple of days.
 
".... the vw bus of the sea :)
Click to expand...

Harald, your buddy is not the first to recognize the C-Dory for what they are.

AKA the Sea Going Jeep, the Boating Beetle, and Home on the Waves are some of the other terms I have heard over the years.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

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