New ways to use a Sunfish

Seaotter5

Well-Known Member
This YouTuber has been posting videos on using his Sunfish to more than just race or sail around. A little rough around the edges, but still interesting
The Sunfish is evidently far more flexible than I had thought!

 
I've been having a hankering to use mine to cross the Columbia river from WA side to OR side to Sauvies island or to St. Helens (town) and hang out and go berry picking each summer.... but I always chicken out. That shipping lane is for realz... and I'd feel a lot safer driving a scooter on a freeway. Anyone play frogger?

If the wind quit on me with a cargo ship bearing down I think I'd not have fun.

maybe one year. Anyway off to the lake today in a few!
 
I've been having a hankering to use mine to cross the Columbia river from WA side to OR side to Sauvies island or to St. Helens (town) and hang out and go berry picking each summer.... but I always chicken out. That shipping lane is for realz... and I'd feel a lot safer driving a scooter on a freeway. Anyone play frogger?

If the wind quit on me with a cargo ship bearing down I think I'd not have fun.

maybe one year. Anyway off to the lake today in a few!

I always carry a take apart kayak paddle with me. My Minifish paddles really well with it. I am used to playing "frogger" with ships on the St Lawrence Seaway and the Chesapeake Bay in my kayaks, so I think that the same would be true in my 'Fish. It would be fun to find out! Unless it didnt work. That would be a lot less fun !
 
The trick to riding a scooter on the freeway: do it at rush hour when the place is a parking lot, your chances of survival are better that way. ;)

Talking about those berries reminds me of a jaunt I took up to the Northwest not so long ago... looking for property, but I never found a home worth buying in my price range, everything was bombed-out and moldy from the climate. Had a good time camping though, I spent six wonderful weeks out on the west coast of Washington (Grayland State Beach south of Westport, and Bruceport overlooking Willapa Bay near South Bend). Berry bushes EVERYWHERE, it was amazing, never seen so many wild berries in my life... :rolleyes:

As for the marine traffic, I grew up dodging shipping in Dago (or San Diego), and there's plenty of it down there, but what impressed me most about the Columbia River was the BAR... now THAT is a hazardous place for small craft, especially with a huge swell running. I remember visiting Cape Disappointment on a fine sunny day, and the swell was huge, with double-overhead waves crashing on beaches to the north of the river mouth, and the bar a regular maelstrom, a seething oceanic cauldron which literally stopped me in my tracks when I hit the overlook. :eek:

To me, the Columbia River is the mightiest river in the Western United States, and the volume of water pouring from the river into the ocean is HUGE... then there's the coastal current, and if a big swell is running then conditions get CRAZY HAZARDOUS!!! I remember seeing these huge 'pyramids' of water forming and reforming in one area of the bar, and these phat freakin' GEYSERS of water would shoot upward wherever opposing forces met... I even said to myself, "Damn, that would NOT be a good place for Laser sailing!!!" And the Minifish? "FUHGEDDABOUTIT!!!" :confused:

As an aside, those rock jetties at the mouth of the Columbia River are also impressive, especially that one on the Oregon side... thing stretches for MILES, it must have been a bear to build, even for the Army Corps of Engineers. I know there was a small railroad line built just to get the job done, dunno how long it took but I reckon it didn't happen overnight. Anyway, thanks for the mention of those wild berries, funny how simple lines like that can bring back so many memories. One day you'll brave marine traffic, cross the river and pick berries to your heart's content... or maybe your stomach's content, LOL. :)

THOSE BLACKBERRIES UP THERE WERE AMAZING, NEVER SEEN SO MANY IN ONE AREA... BIG TOO, LIKE THE BALD EAGLES THAT CRUISED THE SHORES OF WILLAPA BAY, NEVER SEEN ANY BIGGER!!! :cool:
 
Haha, that's right, some of those driftwood logs would tear the bottom out of a steel ship... :confused:

I remember seeing a cool sculpture in front of a house on the Washington coast, it was a whale made out of pieces of driftwood... :rolleyes:

Other homes had nautical themes, with driftwood, buoys, nets, etc., pretty cool decor for coastal towns & villages. :cool:

And those fishing villages out on the west coast of WA, they had some damned good seafood, LOL... ;)
 
Haha, that's right, some of those driftwood logs would tear the bottom out of a steel ship... :confused:

I remember seeing a cool sculpture in front of a house on the Washington coast, it was a whale made out of pieces of driftwood... :rolleyes:

Other homes had nautical themes, with driftwood, buoys, nets, etc., pretty cool decor for coastal towns & villages. :cool:

And those fishing villages out on the west coast of WA, they had some damned good seafood, LOL... ;)

A single piece of "driftwood" you couldn't see over! :eek:
 
While exploring the beaches in the PNW (or Pacific Northwest), I personally saw 3-foot sticks in the water (logs a yard in diameter), and a monster stump that had washed ashore... trunk was around 5' at the base, with a root mass even larger. :eek:
 
This is cool:
sunfish bar.jpg
 
That IS cool... classic paint job, not only on the hull but also on the bar stools, LOL. :rolleyes:

I wonder if they use the cockpit as an icebox? Set a case or two of bottled beer in there and dump ice on top of the bottles... works for me! ;)

Drag a ghettoblaster out there and play some old Ventures tunes, maybe some good reggae to match the bar stool paint job, LOL. :cool:

Edit: Some good flamenco guitar work would also fly... :D
 

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