Here's the edited draft:
When summer bakes the Treasure Valley, the central Oregon coast calls like a promise. For my wife, Lana, and me, the journey west is a plunge into air 40 degrees cooler, into cathedral forests of Sitka spruce and western hemlock, and into a coastline that makes you remember what wonder feels like.
Along this stretch of coast, the pleasures of travel — fresh fish, forest trails and ocean views — are tied to the people working to keep the place alive, from a fisherman-restaurateur hauling his own catch to conservationists protecting the land and the stories embedded in it.
For us, much of that wonder is edible, and few places here deliver seafood better than the Luna Sea Fish House restaurants in Yachats and Seal Rock. The menus offer about a dozen fish-and-chip combinations, from albacore and halibut to wild king salmon, tiger prawns and oysters, along with many other seafood selections and a few landlubber dishes.
Halibut and salmon top our list. When their fish lands at our table, the gratification is immediate. Few relaxed dining experiences feel more satisfying than savoring seafood that still carries the freshness of the water from which it came.
That freshness is due in large part to restaurateur and commercial fisherman Capt. Robert Anthony of the F/V Liberty II, who hauls in much of it himself for his two Luna Sea Fish House restaurants.
Robert, 75, who grew up in Santa Cruz, got his first taste of commercial fishing in 1970 as a deck hand on a vessel plying the waters of southeastern Alaska. In 1978, a new opportunity came his way. "That guy tossed me a $100 bill and said, 'go get your crew license and a pair of deck boots.' Next morning I was heading out — and I haven't stopped since."
Robert bought his first boat, which he named the Luna, and line fished California waters in the 1980s. When he got his Oregon permit, he fished both states for a couple of years before casting off from California in 1990 and moving to Oregon.
"The main grounds I fish these days are between Newport and Coos Bay, about 15 miles offshore. I fish albacore tuna in July and August, weather permitting for my size boat."
That boat, the F/V Liberty II, is 45 feet and holds 12 tons, docked in Newport. It's the successor to the Luna, which Robert ran for 26 years. Now awaiting restoration, the Luna graces the front of his Seal Rock restaurant — alongside a 12-foot-tall cutout of the captain holding a giant fish.
Robert primarily trolls for king salmon, halibut and albacore, and was a crabber for 30 years. What he doesn't bring in himself he sources as locally as possible. His best day ever came in Monterey Bay in the mid-1990s.
"It was a phenomenal biomass of king salmon. I was fishing the Luna by myself and I had 264 fish in one day."
But those incredible days can turn dangerous. This is where his late brother Gary — who also served as his crew and fishing partner, and who passed away this past April — proved his mettle.
"I've had a couple of harrowing bar crossings. The latest one was a couple years ago — I was crossing a real nasty bar, just about midway down the channel, when I started losing power. The waves were sharp and close together and I broached off one. The tide was ebbing, and we could have gone on the rocks. The swell was big enough it would have pounded holes in the boat."
Gary jumped into the engine room and switched filters. "He saved the boat," Robert said. "Saved possible loss of life. That was the great escape."
Robert segued into the restaurant business in part due to farmed salmon driving down both quality and market prices. He started Luna Sea Products, a small fish market in Yachats, in 2008 — gourmet canned tuna, smoked salmon, fresh seafood. When an old restaurant in town closed, he converted it into Luna Sea Fish House. In 2021 he opened a second location at Seal Rock, adding breakfast to the lunch and dinner menu. Both locations display local art and feature outdoor music by area musicians when weather allows.
The wonder extends to nearby Cape Perpetua, just south of Yachats, where many of the region's trails carry older stories shaped by Indigenous presence, language and memory. View the Future, a local conservation organization, works to protect forests, wildlife habitat, watersheds and cultural sites while creating low-impact ways for travelers to experience them. They also work to surface the history of local tribes, who preceded the modern resort town by several thousand years.
VtF uses conservation easements to safeguard natural, cultural and educational resources. The Kittel Conservation Easement — 27-plus acres of conifer forest between Yachats and Cape Perpetua — was purchased by Joanne and Norman Kittel in 1986 to help complete the Oregon Coast Trail and protect the property for the long haul. A stretch of the Amanda Trail crosses the easement, which contains significant archaeological sites. Interpretive signs help travelers understand the paths as part of a cultural landscape shaped by village life, displacement, survival and continuing tribal presence.
For those whose rugged trail days are behind them, the handicap-accessible Yachats 804 Trail offers another way in. A link in the roughly 400-mile Oregon Coast Trail, it runs about 1.5 miles north from Yachats State Park along the coastline, with sweeping ocean views, tidepool access, and restful benches along the way. On our last evening, the sun dropped into the Pacific and the tidepools caught the light — a quiet, unhurried end to another coastal visit that left us already planning the next one.
Luna Sea Fish House lunaseafishhouse.com 153 NW Hwy 101, Yachats | Hours: 10:30 AM–9 PM 10111 NW Pacific Coast Hwy, Seal Rock | Hours: 8 AM–9 PM
View the Future viewthefuture.org