August 31, 1997
Horse Fall, Oregon, USA

The next morning, I got my butt kicked trying to go out through the surf. I got totally trashed, and had to go back to the beach. All the gear I had on my front deck was hanging off the sides, and my rudder was bent. I learned two things: Never try to go out through a surf zone with equipment piled on the front deck, and always take a few minutes to rest before heading out. It takes a massive amount of energy to bust through big walls of water. After carrying my boat down the beach, I had used up a lot of that energy. On my front deck, I had a bilge pump, a water proof map case, and a Platypus water bag. After storing the gear inside my boat, and taking a half-hour rest, I made it through the surf zone successfully.

Nothing interesting happened until I landed for the evening at Horse Fall State Park. There, I was fed a steak supper by a family of hill-billies who believe humans are just an Alien experiment, then I spent the rest of the evening hanging around the camp-fire with a group of dirt-bike riders. One dude, who I called Joe(he reminded me of a guy I went to high school with named Joe), played guitar and sang for us. It was a great group of people. They were fun to be with.