![\"dog-beach\"](\"http:\/\/www.chilltravelers.com\/chill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/dog-beach.jpg\" "\\"dog-beach\\"")
<\/a>There is nothing ordinary about us.\u00a0 In fact, we\u00a0have gotten use to being\u00a0180\u00b0 from ordinary.\u00a0 We just seem to stumble on things in life.\u00a0 Situations, things and unusual people are just the norm for us.<\/p>\nLast week, we went to our favorite bakery in Nye Beach Oregon.\u00a0 There was Panini Joe and the usual unusual crowd was there.\u00a0 The pirate, coffee thief, Goth girl\u2026 you know the regulars.\u00a0 Nye Beach is very different from Newport.\u00a0 Newport is a drinking town with a fishing problem.\u00a0 Nye is the beach community that when you leave Newport to drive to Nye, it is not only about a mile from downtown, but you travel back in time to about 1975.\u00a0 Rustic beach homes and businesses and a crowd of people that resemble a Vermont commune more than the hippie community that you would expect.\u00a0 My God, they even have a place called the Caf\u00e9 Mundo that plays folk music and has author readings from the likes of a guy named Matt Love.<\/p>\n
After an outstanding bread pudding and Italian coffee at Panini Joe\u2019s, we decided to walk on Nye Beach.\u00a0 It was a gorgeous morning, sunny and clear.\u00a0 The week prior was drizzly, cool and foggy.\u00a0 In fact, this was the first really nice day in two weeks and it was unusual to see the beach bright and clear.\u00a0 Work would wait an hour as we felt this might be the only sunny morning on Nye Beach.\u00a0 We were a week away from leaving and the sunny beach took priority today.<\/p>\n
As we walked down to the Nye common, we noticed a large number of people.\u00a0 Then as we turned toward the beach, the dunes that were typically smooth and wind driven were flattened by what looked like thousands of footprints.\u00a0 As our eye peered upward, there is was!\u00a0 An 80\u2019 tuna boat washed up on the beach!\u00a0 Okay, we thought, it was a little unusual to see this fishing boat beached and listing on it port side.<\/p>\n
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Flanking the boat was a couple of Caterpillar dozers, a steam shovel, We spent a few hours hanging around talking to some of the locals and learning their life\u2019s stories.<\/p>\n An old guy named Tom who lived up on the bluff used to own a chain of truck stops told us about the gas crisis in the 70\u2019s and how he sold his stores to retire in Nye.\u00a0 Now he lives in his bluff house that he raised one story so he could see the ocean, runs a 14 unit apartment building that he owns and aspires to commute to Honduras to harvest mahogany wood stumps left by the British.<\/p>\n We met another gal who came down from Portland and proudly displayed her Goodwill clothing.\u00a0 It seems as though it is the in thing for Oregonians to dress hippie sheik at the lowest possible cost.\u00a0 It is a very common conversation opener around friends to hear them talk about their clothing and how much it cost.\u00a0 Great jacket! Yeah I got it at Beavers for 50 cents.\u00a0 Just in Nye Beach alone, there are probably 5 second hand stores.\u00a0 In all of Newport, they probably total more than 20.\u00a0 She was bummed because the pull would not happen until high tide which would be at about 6 pm.\u00a0 She had to go back to Portland for a meeting.<\/p>\n We decided to head back to the Grizzly.\u00a0 I had my camera with me, but only my super wide angle lens.\u00a0 Figured I would grab everything back at the coach and then return to Nye Beach to hang out with the rest of the unusual usuals.<\/p>\n The Vietnam Vets all came out to see the Huey.\u00a0 All with stories about their experiences with this war bird or about someone they knew that flew one, crashed one or jumped out of one.\u00a0 Some were emotional as in brought back memories when they returned to a country that hated them.\u00a0 Some told stories about not admitting that they were Nam Vets until recently.\u00a0 After all, this day at Nye Beach was the first day of the 40th<\/sup> anniversary of Woodstock.\u00a0\u00a0 There were a few welling eyes as they grouped together to tell their stories around the tail rotor of the Huey.<\/p>\n We spent more time with Sean and Bob his crew chief.\u00a0 I could not help notice Sean\u2019s arms.\u00a0 The underside looked like he had been resting his arms of a grate with thousands of circular dimples.\u00a0 You know, they looked like you have leaned on something with a bunch of holes and it created this perfect pattern on the skin that would soon disappear.\u00a0 Sean\u2019s did not disappear and I looked for something that he might be leaning on to cause this funny looking design on both of his arms.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The young captain of the Little Linda is about 23 and his crewman partner is about the same age.\u00a0 They fell asleep.\u00a0 The red faced sunburned crewman told the news crew that they parked on the beach because the mooring fees were too high in Newport.\u00a0\u00a0 They laughed and printed the story.\u00a0 He told of waking up and realizing that they maybe sinking.\u00a0 So, they jumped into their survival suits, zipped them tight and inflated their<\/p>\n life raft.\u00a0 To their embarrassment, when they threw the life raft over and jumped in, they were in 6\u201d deep water on the beach.\u00a0 Luckily, this all happened at 2 am and no one saw the seafaring screw-up.\u00a0 When everyone woke, it was just a new icon on Nye Beach.<\/p>\n Wendy started to talk to Sean again as the Little Linda bobbled a bit in the surf.<\/p>\n He asked what we did and she told him about our inside out skin care company that put us on the road 300+ days a year.\u00a0 He told her about the gallon of lotion that he used almost every day.\u00a0 She said why and he told her of a helicopter crash that left him burned over 40% of his body.\u00a0 Now those marks on his arms made sense.\u00a0 Skin grafts!\u00a0 He described that the hospital in Tennessee told him that it would take a year and a half of surgeries with animal skin grafts and countless hours of rehabilitation.\u00a0 Sean\u2019s sister-in-law found a burn specialist in Portland and they flew Sean there.\u00a0 They took his own skin from his legs, perforated it and stretched it over his arms.\u00a0 As the new skin grew between the holes, it created this perfect geometric pattern on Sean\u2019s arms.\u00a0 Now it looks great, but like giant goose bumps on his arms.<\/p>\n Sean and Bob had done their work early in the day, but had to hang around until the salvage master released them.\u00a0 He wanted them to wait in case the crew on the Little Linda had to abandon ship in case she broke apart as they pulled her off the beach.\u00a0 They brought over a life ring and told them that if the Little Linda went down, they were to fly out and drag the life ring so that they crew could catch on and be drug back to shore.\u00a0 Sean had a puzzled look on his face as they handed him the ring.<\/p>\n The crowd was pretty large now.\u00a0 I had brought back a DVD for Sean with all the pictures that I had shot that morning.\u00a0 We were on the inside of the cordoned area looking out at what probably totaled 1,000 people all spread out\u00a0 over Nye Beach.\u00a0 Everyone was standing around now.\u00a0 The Cat\u2019s were up the beach now and Sean became a bit nervous that the water was getting close to the chopper.\u00a0 He figured that if he had to wait until 6pm that he was going to have to fly out with the skids in the water.<\/p>\n Just then, the Little Linda stood straight up from the 30\u00b0 tilt that she had since being beached.\u00a0 She just stood straight up in the water as if proud.\u00a0 A few minutes later, we watched as the Little Linda hobby horsed on the beach.\u00a0 The tug kept her tight, so that she would not go on the beach anymore.\u00a0 Today, Nye Beach was supposed to have an 8\u2019 positive tide.\u00a0 This was good for the Little Linda.\u00a0 Just then, the captain of Little Linda called for 5o more rpm\u2019s.\u00a0 Again the white smoke poured from the Tug and the Little Linda moved backwards stern first into the surf.\u00a0 The crowd cheered and all the TV crews on the hill trained their cameras on the Little Linda to see if she would float and then make it through the surf. Little Linda was now about 50 yards off shore and floating as the tug pulled hard to get her free of the surf.\u00a0 The beach was now almost clear of people.\u00a0 The excitement was over and there was this sense that a community had come together to witness this event and to tell their stories.\u00a0 Now it was time to go back to their caves, businesses and unusual usual lifestyles.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>a bunch of trucks, a 1964 Huey helicopter and most of Nye Beach\u2019s residence.\u00a0 This was a happening at Nye, so we joined in as if we were just a couple of locals down watching this news worthy event.<\/p>\n<\/a>Then there was Sean the chopper pilot.\u00a0 We talked to him quite a while about his Vietnam vintage Huey helicopter and the plan.\u00a0 It was Sean\u2019s job to hoist a thin Kevlar line up in the air.\u00a0 Attached was a 4\u201d braided main line.\u00a0 His job is to lift the light line high and then fly it out to a tug that was waiting.\u00a0 This was not just any tug, but one that weighs 190,000 pounds and will pull the Little Linda apart or off the beach.\u00a0 No one was quite sure how the old boat would fare.\u00a0 So Sean lifted the light line and flew it out to the tug dragging it over the stern to be caught by the crew.<\/p>\n<\/a>We got back to the coach, gathered our bits and headed back to Nye.\u00a0 It was about 3 pm and the water was now lapping the stern of the Little Linda.\u00a0 Not enough force to move her around, but enough to focus everyone\u2019s attention on imagining that she moved.<\/p>\n<\/a>The Little Linda moved a bit.\u00a0 That line that Sean had flown out was pulled in and the 4\u201d line pulled out and secured to the tug.\u00a0 The radio blasted, \u201canother 50 rpm\u2019s.\u201d\u00a0 The tug captain acknowledged and a puff of white smoke billowed out of the stack of the tug.\u00a0 Stationed about one quarter of a mile off shore, the tug pulled the heavy line tight.\u00a0 Keeping the line as tight as possible, they waited for the boot stripe of the Little Linda to be submerged.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>It was now about 4:30p and the water was up to the boot strip on the Little Linda.\u00a0 The radio rang out from the captain of the Little Linda to the tug, \u201canother 50 rpm\u2019s.\u201d\u00a0 Again another puff of white smoke rose from the tug and the line was singing tight.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n