Sunday May 20 to Thursday May 24th 2018
Trip Distance 60 nm
Warning: We found that the Siuislaw bar closes more often than others along the coast and opened only on the after the slack tide incoming current, twice each day. This is even with nice seas with 3-4’ swell. With the bridge tender asking for minimum two hour call before opening got dicey having to call bridge tender with bar closed a couple hours before high slack and you just hope the bar opens.
Here is a web page we found will all the bar status that would be a good idea to get closings as you go.
Washington/Oregon Bar Reports (Open or restricted Etc):
https://www.wrh.noaa.gov/pqr/marine/BarObs.php
Fairly short leg to Florence which we have enjoyed visiting by car so we decided to stop there for a few day’s. About half way there the starboard stabilizer fin stopped moving the way it should on the TRAC monitor where it just floated around center. I went ahead and went below to mid-ship space and pinned the fin to disable it. Water Dog handles well in moderate seas with one fin so all is well.
Florence is about four miles up from the Siuslaw river entrance and has some nice looking sandy beaches along the starboard side with more development along the port.
We pulled up to the guest dock for a side tie that’s just past the bridge on the port side of river.
We happened to arrive on Rhody(Rhododendron) day at Florence so they had the fair in town with rides and games as well as the local Harley riders.
Had a great bowl of Crab Chowder at little floating place Novelli’s crab shack … all seafood from their own boat.
Took a walk just north of guest dock where the Port Of Siuslaw office is and their nice RV park.
The people at the port were all super nice.
The next day we want over and got 840 gallons of diesel at $2.28 per gallon, a great price right now. No high speed pump so took a couple hours to pump but Jasen was very nice to watch the pump for that long.
We went out to dinner one night. Someone had recommended the Firehouse Grill for the best clam chowder. Another local passed by and mentioned the Water Front Depot as the best place to eat. I (Patty) had seen it on yelp as the best restaurant in town so when Alex wanted to divert I said sure. We had a great meal at the bar with an attentive and friendly bartender, Tom. When I asked for good sipping Tequilla he offered one up which was good. He suggested cinnamon instead of salt prior to the tequilla then follow with an orange slice YUM!…. Alex asked for a special drink which Tom made (bourbon or scotch based drink)
Ended up the starboard stabilizer fin hydrolic cyclinder nut had come loose so the fin was not longer attached to it and was swinging free. Ended up taking it out to make sure cylinder OK and re-installing Wed.
We called for 0700 bridge opening the night before but at 0700 bar was closed so we called to cancel. We then heard Tango being escorted out by coast guard and called bridge back to open and we where lucky enough because he was still on bridge (we actually ended up going through at our scheduled time of 7am).
