Back to the Beginning

There it stood, arched against a sunny sky and reflected in the calm waters of the South Beach Marina. It was the same and yet not the same as on that clear November night more than ten years ago when Bob and I steered our 47-foot sailboat under the bridge that has spanned Yaquina Bay since 1936. On that night the lights on the bridge became our beacon as we strained to distinguish the red and green navigational lights from the myriad of streetlights reflecting off the dark waters of the bay. It was the culmination of a three-day sail down the Washington and Oregon coastlines, bringing Chiron to her new homeport… Newport, Oregon, home of “Free Willy,” Rogue Ale, and Mo’s Clam Chowder. It had been my first experience at sea and marked the beginning of a new life for me. A year later we sailed away from Oregon, heading north to the rugged coastlines and islands of British Columbia where we lived aboard our sailboat for three years. Now we live in a log cabin, with rivers and snow-capped mountains, but saltwater still flows in our veins. It's good to see the Yaquina Bay Bridge once again.
... P. L. Morningstar