Masked Bandits

 "Oh sure. wait until you get a picture until you chase him off," Wayne chided.

Masked bandit doing the rounds at the Gilbert River dock on Multnomah Channel.
"Bacon?" Wayne believes he's asking.

True. But the raccoon, aka, masked bandit, looked like it was both interested and capable of clambering aboard our boat. 

"Each of their front feet has five dexterous toes, allowing raccoons to grasp and manipulate food and other items," reveals the Washington State Department of Wildlife.

The raccoon demonstrates it's more curious (or hungry?) than shy as itgets closer.

"Don’t feed raccoons," the website warns, in bold text. "Feeding raccoons may create undesirable situations for you, your children, neighbors, pets, and the raccoons themselves. Raccoons that are fed by people often lose their fear of humans and may become aggressive when not fed as expected."

With open garbage cans and who-knows-what goo left behind by fishing folks, we get that made this dock aside a Gilbert River boat launch raccoon nirvana. Raccoons are happy to scavenge and this was likely part of its regular rounds.

I know the difference between Rocket Raccoon as an anthrophomized "Guardians of the Galaxy" animated character and the real deal. This guy (or gal -- I didn't check) was not shy.

Yup, that's our boat the raccoon's looking up at. Gilbert River, Multnomah Channel, Portland Oregon area.

Isn't he cute" Wayne asked, looking at the picture as I worked on this post. "Don't you feel guilty about chasing him off?" 

Nope. I don't.

Note the position of the raccoon's foot, before I shooed it away by yelling at it and waving my hands.
(It was dusk deeping to darkness - harder to get crisp pictures of a moving critter)

Location Location
To escape the winds and chop and rocking on the Columbia River,* we tucked into Multnomah Channel, a calmer tributary. We tied off at the older of the two Gilbert River docks. The one we picked allowed us to walk to Sauves' beach. N45 47.505.W122 47.978. That was last week. At the moment, we're tied off on the public dock at St. Helens, Oregon, 

*more on what exactly prompted us to skedaddle into Multnomah Channel in a future post

Serendipity, tied off at a calmer than Columbia River spot at Gilbert River,
Multnomah Channel, Portland Oregon area.