Newport Oregon

We arrived in Newport on the afternoon of Saturday, August 26th and stayed at the Newport marina for two nights.  The first evening, after letting the kids run around and play for a few hours on a dried up pond bed near the marina, we headed to a local seafood spot on the recommendation of some other boaters in the marina - the Lighthouse Deli - within walking distance on highway 101.  They were just closing as we arrived, but we got our orders in, sat outside on the picnic tables and were promptly attacked by mosquitoes!  The food was outstanding, but talk about eat and run!  We gulped down our fish and chips and quick walked back to a brewery near the marina with a small family restaurant for a beer and some yummy cheesecake.

The marina is on the opposite side of the Yaquina river from the town of Newport and the only way to get into town without taking a boat is to cross the highway 101 bridge which was built around 1912 and as a consequence, has rather poor excuses for sidewalks.  Eric went for a run Sunday morning across the bridge and through town and decided that the distance would mean the kids taking their bikes and that bikes on the bridge was a bad idea.   We didn't really want to put the dingy in the water as we knew we would be departing early the next morning (we stow the dingy tied down on deck for open water passages - it's safer, but less accessible than on the dingy davits where it would be vulnerable to a large following wave) but if we were staying longer, we would have absolutely done that for both the short trip across the river into town as well as to explore up-river.  Some folks on another boat had just came back from a day of exploring up-river and highly recommended the trip.  We weren't going to be there that long, but lucky for us, the Oregon Coast Aquarium, one of the best in the country, was an easy walk away on the marina side of the river.  We spent the afternoon there with the kids while Dave went exploring on his own in search of antique shops.  Later that afternoon, Eric got some work done on the boat while Mel and the kids headed to an equally well done marine interpretation center.   We ate (dinner this time) at the brewery Sunday night and headed to bed with the plan to fuel up at the gas dock as soon as it opened in the morning and head out for Eureka or San Francisco but after getting up, getting ready and trying to move the boat Monday morning,  we realized we were aground!  The extremely low tide was just low enough for us to settle a little into the mud at the guest dock!  That's twice we've gone aground in this boat and both times we were within feet of a dock!  The tide was already rising, so after waiting a 1/2 hour, we floated out of the mud, fueled up and headed out.

Most of the boats in the marina and small private fishing boats or charter fishing boats.  People catch a lot of fish and crab here, so much in fact that the marina provides a good sized cleaning table and boiling pot for crab!  Check out this guy cleaning a sizable tuna.  Start to finish in less than 90 seconds!

Click on the photos for larger images.