Why the Gorge earns its reputation
Somebody in the marine layer decided cool coastal air needed to get funneled through seventy miles of basalt cliffs and slam headlong into the hot interior, and the result is a wind machine so reliable you could set your watch to it, if your watch had any interest in getting soaked. That's the whole secret behind Hood River turning into a windsurfing and sailing mecca — not marketing, just physics with a bad attitude.
Sailing the Columbia is nothing like sailing a lake, and anybody who tells you otherwise hasn't been out there when the gusts jump ten knots in the time it takes to react. Real current shoving one direction, barge traffic that doesn't care about your tack, a channel too narrow to forgive a bad decision. It's not a gentle teacher. It rewards people who pay attention and makes an example out of everyone else, usually in front of witnesses.
Glass-flat, deceptively calm, the kind of quiet that's clearly just gathering itself for later.
Wind stops pretending. Whitecaps by early afternoon most days May through September, right on schedule.
Sun goes down, wind loses interest, channel goes quiet. Current keeps working the night shift regardless.