On the 10th of October, I woke up in the worst hotel I’ve ever stayed in. Turns out that staying in a hotel rated 2.5 stars is like spending the night at a crime scene. Signs that the bathroom door had been kicked in at one point and repaired poorly at that, along with more than one person working on their car in the parking lot came as a stark contrast to the room I stayed in Hawaii on the 14th-floor complete with remote controlled blinds and a view of the marina. Maybe having contrast in your life is good.

I made it home for a few days between the Dragonfly delivery to SF to do the Benson Cup on my boat “Elsewhere” and had grabbed some stuff before the Baba 35 delivery but there wasn’t time after that to go home before heading off to PA to get on the Luhrs so I wasn’t as prepared as I like to be. Different deliveries require different prep. I caught a ride to Tacoma with the owners of the Baba and got the aforementioned room where I planned to wait for my crew coming up from the Gorge on the next day. For once I had a little time to kill so I caught a bus to the Goodwill where I found some mugs and a pot to cook with as the boat just sold and didn’t have any cookware. I also got a sweatshirt and shorts and a few DVDs. After that, I caught another bus into town and watched a French film I had been wanting to see at an art-house theater. I have to admit Tacoma’s old town has some charm. My crew arrived and we drove to Sequim where I got us a room. More like those seen in episodes of Xflies than Breaking Bad.

The next day we drove to PA where the Luhrs had been since the Canadian delivery crew brought it over a few weeks before. The boat was out of place in these waters, designed for southern climes and much more suited to a place like Florida with its open cockpit and exposed flybridge. Its three outriggers too did not make sense in the protected waters where downriggers helped catch salmon rather than pelagic fish like tuna and marlin. The only thing that was missing on this strange boat was one of those fighting chairs with the spot for the rods but to go between your legs.

The fuel dock attendant mentioned this too but with more colorful language. Fuel dock attendants don’t have to mince their words. We put in 240 gallons in the single 400-gallon tank and were on our way. The boat had been repowered not long before the sale and the engines only had 750 hours. The engines were 500 horsepower Cummins turbo diesels and should be capable of pushing the boat at 30 knots. Far faster than most seas would allow and fuel tanks could supply for long.

The plan was to take it easy until we knew what the burn rate was and could figure the boat’s range. Westport fuel dock was going to be closed when we got there so we would have to fuel first thing and head to Newport the next day. We ran the engines at 1700 and the flow meters said we were burning 21 gph which worked out to a little over a gallon a mile. This was the most conservative rpm and should produce the furthest range

If you are going to be late and need after hour fuel up the attendant will come down after hours for $75.

In Newport, we arrived just before they closed at 16:00 and the ride was rough. While we were fueling we chatted with the attendant about wishing there was more than Rogue Brewery to eat at on this side of the bridge he told us that his daughter used to work there but now managed a much better place called The Barge in Old Town and would drive us in and buy us the first round. He was a retired fisherman who had “delivered some boats in his time”. We would have been very glad for just the ride over the bridge but a free beer and exchange in sea stories was even better.

Above the door of The Barge reads in bright yellow western font “Home of the Wino’s, Dingbat’s & Riff Raff”. What the grilled cheese sandwich I had for dinner lacked, the service and company more than made up for. Rouge Brewery is great, don’t get me wrong, but the patina isn’t quite there like these ocean-side roadhouse dives have that I love. Not to mention the local knowledge that is invaluable to a mariner in a foreign port is less likely to be found at tourist places.

Once underway the next day we got a surprise. The integrated electronic system in the boat produced an alarm saying we had water in the fuel. Water in fuel is more common than most think and I have a few misadventures I’ve written about on here that go into detail but that’s why we have water separators. Often call Racors because of the popular brand these units separate the water from the fuel while filtering a specified size of particles. These filters have a clear bowl at the bottom where you can see the water if it’s in the fuel. Sometimes these bowls have terminals where an alarm can be wired and when there is water in the bowl it completes the circuit and sends the alarm. That’s not the kind of sensor these engines had. I honestly still don’t know where that sensor is but I did shut the engine in question down and jump into the engine room once I saw the alarm. Different boats have different access to their working parts. If you’ve read any of my other posts you’ve heard me complain about this before. It’s mostly on sailboats designed by Bob Perry so I was surprised to see how poorly this boat’s fuel filter system was designed. In order to see if there was water in the fuel, I had to put my camera phone on video and record a short clip as I held it at almost arm’s length down into the bilge of the boat. I couldn’t see much in this out-of-focus clip so I decided to take a sample of the fuel in the bottom of the bowl. With both hands and a yogurt container set to catch the fuel and possible water below the drain valve, I pulled up the sample and found only a little gunk and nothing to indicate a concerning amount of water in the fuel. The only concern was how hard it was to get the plastic valve open. I could imagine how breaking this would have been hard if impossible for us to fix.

I was actually concerned about the water that was setting off the alarm while we were in a precarious place on the Oregon Coast. Going in anywhere for anything was going to kill the precious little time we had with our weather window. I discussed the risks with my crew and we decided to stay the course. This is important to note because electric alarms are a relatively new part of the marine world. Everything from the annoying AIS alarms to the distressing accidental PLB activation. Even our VHF radios “cry wolf” whenever 20 minutes the USCG cadet must as quickly and inaudibly as possible transmit a “securitay” announcing to every boater in a 100 mile or more radius that an unmanned red kayak was reported adrift in the vicinity of bla bla. These warnings lower our guard just as we lower the volume on the radio. How we as prudent mariners remain attentive to the important information at hand while the din of the modern bridge is a tough question and challenge for today’s boater.

Other than some sea state that created what bordered on inhumane conditions on the bridge we made it in before the blow and after making friends with all the scallywags on the dock found a spot to tie up in the lee of a big fishing boat. Eureka has its share of patina but I think that with some basic security measures and friendliness to the marinas residents it is fairly safe. We gave our uneaten provision to one of these water folk.