Cruise #6 - Winter Wonderland

Crew : Chief Engineer Boston, Chief Rigger Cory the Kid, Acting Ensign Dabby

Mace was absent due to "making ice sculptures", not sure if that's a euphemism.

Weather : Very cold. Around 23 F at departure, it warmed up somewhat by the time we hit the Columbia. Wind : Zero, glassy water

Chief Engineer Boston eventually coaxed the Yanmar to life but we didn't hear the happy splashing noise that means the diesel is recirculating water as coolant so he shut it down and let the impeller have some time with the space heater before we tried again.

Once the hoses thawed out it was running beautifully and we were soon underway.

We saw lots of wildlife along the channel, a few bald eagles and hundreds of birds I was calling cormorant and Dabby was calling loon.

Very little traffic on the rivers today. Lots of freighters anchored but we only saw a few other boats moving.

With the wood stove and diesel heater both going it was nice and cozy down below, we took turns steering.

It was cool going to through the swinging railroad bridge, we could see all the giant gears turning. Overall a very pleasant cruise, a lot of things that could have gone wrong didn't, which was a nice change.