We went to "Sea Fest" at the University of Oregon center by the marina this afternoon. It was an open house where you could go thru the labs and try different exhibits and touch weird fish and octopus and go aboard their research vessels. That's Tracy beside Wecoma. Originally built in 1975, its been in use by the university ever since. It goes out for 30+ days and drops sensors on earth quake and volcanic prone areas looking for data on shifts in the earth for later evaluation. They just collect the data, they don't evaluate it. That is left to the people back at the university after their return. It normally carries 30 people while out. 13 crew and the rest are data and research collectors.
As you can see, it's not a small vessel. Theirs runs typically take them out as far as Hawaii.
The day started out beautifully sunny and bright and you couldn't ask for a nicer day. Even the winds were lighter than what we had been experienced recently. I worked on one of our navigation programs on the computer checking on depths and tidal currents to see what we may be facing as we go north.
We took off for the farmers market where we found some great strawberries and beautiful loaves of bread. We came back with a bunch of food. The kind of things you just can't find in supermarkets around here. There were lots of crafts people there but we are in the situation of "if you can't eat it, it doesn't come on board". We are running out of space and need every inch of it for later when we provision Zephyr for the long distance voyages.
When we got back from the open house, it was still gorgeous. Sunny and bright and in the mid 60s. That was about 4:45. By 5:30 the fog was so thick you couldn't see across the harbor. Later, it lifted and the clouds settled in for the night. It may be 100 degrees in Portland but it stays cool here. They keep forecasting higher temps for Newport but they never get here. A few days ago they tried to tell us we would hit 80. Try 68 that day. I guess the weather people here belong to the same weather peoples union as the ones in Colorado. You'd think they would have it easier here since there are no mountains to play with the fronts going thru.
The world is a smaller place than we imagine. The other day when we travelled to McMinnville to buy the outboard motor, the manager that worked with us asked us what kind of boat we were sailing. When we told him a Liberty, he told us that his father bought one back in the mid-80s and had had it for years. His was the 6th one built. There were only 31 of them. What are the chances that we would meet another Liberty owner. It's a small world.
Tomorrow is another day.
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