September 1, 2004

Paddling to Hammond

It looked like the tide would bottom out and turn around in time to push me home for dinner, so I decided to paddle to Hammond. Hammond is a little burg at the mouth of the Columbia River, pretty much the last stop before the bar. I'm upriver ten miles, on a bay to the side of the main estuary, and with a blazing day and a free afternoon, seemed like a good choice.

But first, to finesse the launch, I had to hustle hustle hustle lest there be no water between me and the hip-deep mud. Hustling worked, but a small gillnet boat was ahead of me, the same guy I did a close-in paddle-by the other night, also just before a short gillnet opener on the Bay. I could have stolen his bag of groceries, but he was eying them from a small crouching space, protecting them from me. I settled for a Howdy. Today, he asked me if I were returning to the same haunt, a placid tributary of the Columbia. Nope, doing a shuffle down to the mouth. Oh, be careful out there ... the river gets rough. OK, I will. Like most small boaters, he has no clue how stable a sea kayak is -- certainly more seaworthy than his small open boat, engine or no.

Sliding over the last two inches of water, the Bay opened out, dotted with a couple dozen gill net boats. Gotta get back before six, or I'll be dodging monofilament big time. Hitting the near shore, there is a sixteen-year-old, scrounging in the shoreline rocks. Whatcha looking for? Oh, everything ... nothing to do in fish class today, so I came down here. Find much? No. Yeah, all the good stuff is in the mud, benthic guys for salmon smolts.

More paddling, down the Bay to the coffee shop, to forage for a Jet Tea -- I need hydration, it's hot! Nope, none today, the plumbers have it all torn up, water is two inches deep, and the owner is frowning at all her wet stock. Back to the boat. This may be the only paddle-in latte shop on the Columbia, and today was the day I really neded a hit of caffeine!

Back to the Bay and out past the causeway, in the distance watching the tide rip spin off an adjacent point, my indicator on River state. Smooth and swirly, and ebbing like a bat, but no major chop, so I hit it, crabbing up-current about 45 degrees, heading for the Forerunner, a forty-foot converted troller the local two-year school uses to train marine science students, which is anchored on the other side of the shipping channel. The crew is retrieving something, and spies me about 200 yards out, their faces wrinkling, and exchanging bemused looks. Crabbing even higher, I hit their "wake" in the current, and sprint up to the transom, breathing heavily. Whatcha doing? Testing CTD's and other goodies for analysis of the estuary. Nobody looks familiar (I retired from the two-year school four years ago), so I ask what they're showing for a current. Four and a half knots??!! No wonder I could barely get to them!

I peel off into the faster current adjacent to their hull, and head downriver, adding my hull speed to the current's velocity, making 6 or 8 knots toward Hammond, dodging a fishboat or two crossing my path, and hitting two more rips, pausing on a sandy strip just upriver from the local chipping operation, which produces humongous piles of wood chips for the pulp mill upriver. I am dwarfed as I drift by the chip barge, using residual ebb to cover the last two miles to the Hammond Basin, the site of Willy the Orca's choreographed leap over the breakwater.

Making the turn into the basin, only one of the Bar Pilot vessels is in, so I sidle up and pound on the hull. A young face pops over the rail. What do you want? Sam or Phil working today? Naw, Phil quit to sail around the world and Sam is in Eugene (smirking) ... getting laid! Gunnar is a new deck hand, and is excited by sea kayaks. He and his girl friend plan to take a lesson from Ginni upriver. I tell Gunnar women are better than men at this, and he allows that's OK with him.

Back out of the basin, upriver and onto the sand, donning clothing, current still ebbing some, so I work eddies along the riprap, dodging outfall pipes and wing dams. More than I want to know about the effluent from fish processors, but it's all biodegradable fish guts, I guess. Better than a sewer outfall, for sure!

Scratching against the current, I round the chip plant's sheet piling, formed into linked arcs, with the fat part of the arc out ... to break up the back-splash? And hit another sand bar, this one after another fish boat crosses me, throwing up a wake in shallow water that has me grinning. Popping fast carbs into my maw, hoping the current will turn, and spying the Bay in the distance, with little wave action. Eagle on a piling, shore birds all over, terns plunging into the shallows, and a cormorant comes up with a brand new smolt, flipping it into his craw.

Where is that tail wind I was heading into going the other way? I'm tired!

Another mile and I ease into my home Bay, grocking at now forty gill net boats, but it's OK, I have half an hour before the nets go in, so I'll make it. Work across the flats, choppy as hell on the shoals, surfing a little. No! These guys are cheating! I'm half way up the Bay, and first one tosses in the net float and spins his reel, and then they all do it! Now I have a gauntlet of two dozen nets to end run, which I do, muttering about fish cops, where are they when you need one?

Another fifteen minutes and I spy Becky at the dock, and ease up to the ramp, whupped and womped, the possessor of too many adventures, but feeling like I belong with the River today. Lotta miles, lotta stuff. Earned my dinner, for sure. Tired shoulders and stomach muscles, a sure sign I hit my max.

Maybe Ilwaco, day after tomorrow?
---
Dave Kruger
Astoria, OR

Copyright 2004 by Dave Kruger.
May not be reproduced or redistributed without author's permission.
Republished here with permission.