As I expected, the day was a long boring dumping sandy beach with no place I wanted to have to land on. Sea lions followed me from time to time. I scared some of these and some scared me with a loud exhale of breath right behind my boat. The Coast Guard helicopter flew by while I was adrift during lunch break. They spied me and turned to orbit me once. I signaled OK and they went on about their business. I saw them buzzing up and down the Umpqua Jetty, then they flew back north. They never showed any interest in me for the rest of the trip even though I saw them almost once every day.
The first hour of the day I did four miles. The second hour I must have slacked off because I only did three miles. After that I tried to do better and averaged 3.5 miles per hour for the whole day. I landed behind the south Umpqua Jetty at around 2:00 PM after six or seven hours of paddling. Again, I tucked my tent up against the Jetty to get out of the wind and blowing sand.
I had gentile breezes all morning with clear skies. The wind didn’t come up until about when I landed but never as strong as the day before. I spent a lazy afternoon on the beach after landing. Like many beaches in Oregon, there was “singing sand”. This sand squeaks when you walk on it in some places. I had found sand like this in northern Oregon last year, but this year I found another attraction to it. This beach was popular with kids and dogs running around. The dogs especially made a flute-like sound with four feet hitting the sand in different patterns. I had time to arrange maps, check tides, read from a book, take naps, go for walks and, as you see, write in my journal.