Monday February 16, 2015 Sixes River, Port Orford Oregon
There was a high tide at 9AM this morning so I wanted to be on the Sixes River in time to make use of it to go up the river as far as I could from the Hughes House boat launch area.The boat was on the water at 9:30AM, so I had plenty of time as the high tide should last about two hours or so after the high tide time. The wind was down and the sun was out and there wasn’t anyone else at the launch site when I took off.
With the high tide, the water was fairly easy to paddle on up the river. So as to make use of the high tide, I keep going without breaking much on the way up.
This is what the river looked like as I paddled on up the river.
I spied this hawk of some kind sitting on a tree near by as I passed. It looked like it was just catching some of the morning sun.
I could see a goose up ahead and it started honking as I got closer. I honked back and eventually it flew off.
Just paddling along here, up the river.
Just as I was trying to paddle through some swift current, this guy came drifting down the river. Said he only had a return fish on and let it go on the way down from the Grange.
I was above where the high tide stopped and the water was too fast for me to get through without getting out of the boat, so I turned around. Since I was up as far as I could go, I took my time going back down stopping often and enjoying the river.
I ran into a fisherman who had walked in and shot the bull with him for a bit. He said I was about a mile and a half from the highway, where the Grange is, which meant I had paddled up the river about 2 and a half miles before turning back.
I left him fishing, he hadn’t caught anything yet. I saw one big fish, a steelhead jump out of the water on the way up and one did the same thing on the way down.
I was taking a picture of the great blue heron when these merganser ducks joined in.
I got back to the Hughes House launch area around 1PM and the tide had gone out by then.
I took my boat out and continued out the road to the Cape Blanco Lighthouse where I planned to take it easy in my van for awhile, meaning a nap. :O)
There was no wind here today.This is what the lighthouse looked like from the parking lot.
This was my view from my van where I was parked in the parking lot, looking out into the Pacific ocean.
After I was rested up, I headed back on the road and saw a sign that said cemetery, so I stopped to check it out. It seems most of the early inhabitants were from Ireland. A nice spot to rest for both them and me.
I continued on back to Port Orford where I was going to use the library’s internet, but they were closed today, so I continued on down to the port.
Even though it was a holiday, the port was in full swing. They were unloading sea urchins as I watched.
The guy is having a bit of trouble undoing the bottom of that net so the urchins will fall into the bin. 
I hung around the port for about an hour, then headed on down near were Steve was staying and drove out to the Arizona State beach where I parked and did some computer stuff and took it easy until 5PM when they would lock the gate, so I left and went to where Steve was staying. Steve had just come back from fishing the Sixes River in his drift boat.
I pulled in and was trying to use the Wi-Fi connection to post my blog but it was having a hard time connecting. While I was sitting there Steve walked over with a bag of fresh caught steelhead for me to cook for my dinner. He was redeeming himself from his no catch day yesterday.
I think I got my blog posted with the not so good connection, but am not sure how things went as the connection was so bad I couldn’t check on things. I shot the bull with Steve for a bit then headed to my camp site overlooking the ocean and cooked up the fresh steelhead for dinner. Hummmmm good.
Steve spent all day in his drift boat on fairly fast water, so he’s beat and will likely take it easy tomorrow, so I’m thinking I might go back and do the same thing I did today on the lower Sixes as most of the water around here is too fast right now for me and one needs to shuttle which I don’t have, so I’m better off going in a place were I can paddle up and back.
My time is running out here and I’m going to have to head on home soon.
