Skamokawa – Riveted

More Ships in the Columbia River

Laura Domela — Tue, 02 Jul 2013 18:34:36 +0000

Kevin just finished two three four more videos of ships passing in front of our campsite at Skamokawa. So gorgeous, aren't they?

Also, if you're totally into it and want to subscribe to Kevin's hexacopter video channel on YouTube, you can do that here. (That link is also a link to a "playlist" of the ship videos.)

Here's Ocean Hope:

Here's Celestial Wing:

Here's Hanjin London:

and here's Saga Anorinha:

Leaving Skamokawa

Laura Domela — Mon, 01 Jul 2013 13:08:24 +0000

Last night after dinner (clams!!) we went for a walk down on the beach. It's not a very long beach when the tide is high, so last night's walk was a little short. When we came back to the Airstream it had gotten dark enough for all the solar lights to come on so I snapped a few twilight photos with my iPhone.

I'm glad this area of the campground is dry camping. It's so beautiful and uncrowded. The rest of the campground is nice too, but over there you can't see the ships from your office like we can here.

We're leaving this morning and heading to Champoeg for the week.

Fish & Chips and Tall Ships in Ilwaco

Laura Domela — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 21:09:57 +0000

Late this morning (after we decided to stay here at Skamokawa one more day) we decided to drive into Ilwaco to get some lunch and to stop at the fish market we usually go to when we're in the area ( Jessie's Ilwaco Fish Market) to get some fresh seafood for dinner.

When we got to the port, we noticed there were two tall ships docked there: the Lady Washington and the Hawaiian Chieftain. For three bucks per person (suggested donation) you could go aboard and check 'em out for yourself. So we did, and they were pretty cool.

We had some fish 'n chips (along with some oysters and shrimp…part of a combo) at Imperial Seafood (good, but not as good as the Bandon Fish House on the Oregon Coast) and then we walked around the waterfront a bit before heading over to Jessie's. We picked up some fresh caught ling cod, some steamer clams, and two whole cooked crabs. Should keep us busy for a couple days!

There was something kinda great about just the tail of this halibut sticking out:

Tonight's dinner will be clams in a saffron garlic broth with a salad and a piece of garlic bread.

More Ship Chasing in the Columbia River

Laura Domela — Sat, 29 Jun 2013 20:30:00 +0000

Kevin got some nice footage yesterday morning (with the large hexacopter and the Sony NEX 5N) of a ship on its way into Portland. The water was glassy and the light was great.

This is the Ansac Splendor, coming from Japan carrying (or picking up?) soda ash:

Our Festive Campsite at Skamokawa

Laura Domela — Sat, 29 Jun 2013 17:12:42 +0000

Here's our festive little campsite at Skamokawa. Yesterday was my mom's birthday and we made for breakfast one of her favorites (and ours): crab cake benedict (modified, on a bed of wilted spinach instead of an english muffin) with sliced apples and fresh orange juice. It was sunny and warm most of the day and in the afternoon I took my mom and her friend Judi out to the Two Islands Farmers Market on Puget Island. This is a great little farmers market and yesterday it was even busier and more populated than it was the first time we went. They have a great selection of veggies, fresh eggs and meats, baked goods, a guitar player, someone making hot pizza and some beer tasting. I came home with some wasabi peas, a small block of quince jam, a jar of fresh made caraway sauerkraut, and a small basket of raspberries.

We just hung out and visited (and watched ships) for the rest of the afternoon, and I made one of my mom's favorite recipes for dinner: Shrimp Longhi. We've had it at Longhi's restaurant in Maui, and thankfully they publish the recipe so we can continue to love it at home occasionally. Kevin did some asparagus on the Traeger and we popped open a bottle of champagne for the birthday toast.

After dinner: more campfire and more marshmallows. Kevin roasted one of his perfectly puffed marshmallows and we stuck it on top of a chocolate chip cookie and put a candle in it and sang Happy Birthday to my mom. Well, we tried to sing happy birthday to my mom. The wind kept blowing out the candle so we kept pausing in the middle of the song to relight the candle.

Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday…

relight the candle

…to…

relight the candle

you. Happy…

relight the candle

…Birthday dear Betty. Hap…

relight the candle

…py Birthd…

relight the candle

…ay… to you.

Whew!! (We had to relight it one final time so she could blow it out, but we got it done.)

The sunsets the last two nights here have been so beautiful.

Happy Saturday everyone!

Three Ships and a Sunset

Laura Domela — Fri, 28 Jun 2013 13:25:02 +0000

This morning around 5-something a.m. we were woken up by this ship's fog horn. We probably heard the horn five or six times before we saw the ship emerge from the fog as it headed toward Astoria. I think this ship is the Seastar Endurance. There's a great site we use called The Ship Report to look up the ships while we're camping here at Skamokawa, and you can find it here.

Several more have gone past this morning already, and we haven't even had breakfast yet!

This is the Ansac Splendor, coming from Japan, carrying Soda Ash:

And this is the Celestial Wing (which I think we've seen before), also from Japan, carrying Hondas:

And here's a nice impressionist photo of the colors of the sunset last night:

I handed my mom my camera and forgot to take it off macro mode, but you get the idea.

New Spot at Skamokawa

Laura Domela — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 21:18:14 +0000

It's still a bit gray out here today but word is that starting tomorrow it's 80s and all sun for the entire weekend. Ospreys are hunting out front and we've seen one big tug and a barge so far. Not bad.

Tonight's agenda: after finishing up some more work, we'll cook some tenderloins on the Traeger, plus a tossed salad and roasted sweet potatoes with lime, cilantro, and sea salt, followed by a campfire and toasted marshmallows for dessert.

Ship Watching at Skamokawa

Laura Domela — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 13:52:05 +0000

We're meeting up with my mom and her friend Judi today out at Skamokawa Vista Park for some ship watching and some campfires! This is one of our favorite close-ish to home spots, and we're looking forward to it!

A Break in the Weather

Laura Domela — Tue, 14 May 2013 15:28:08 +0000

Yesterday when we had a little break in the stormy weather, my mom asked if we could try to get a photo of her with her dogs out on some of the huge driftwood pieces just out from our campsites, near the beach. We ended up with several really good ones. Here are two of my favorites:

L-R: Journey, my mom, Pirate, Quest

L-R clockwise: Journey, my mom, Pirate, Quest (on the ground)

We had a good breakfast of veggie and egg frittata with big wedges of watermelon, and now we're hard at work with a much less stormy view of the Columbia River.

More Stormy Ships at Skamokawa

Laura Domela — Mon, 13 May 2013 18:59:57 +0000

Here's another "out the Airstream window" shot of a container ship heading to Astoria from Portland:

Here's so you can see how close the ship channel is to our campsite: