Columbia River Maritime Museum

This is from an exhibit in the entry to the Columbia River Maritime Museum. It's a display of the number and locations of ships that wrecked entering or leaving the Columbia River. The Columbia begins far north of Oregon, in the Canadian Rockies, and travels south through Washington and eventually empties off the coast of Oregon into the Pacific ocean.



The water, which has traveled for thousands of miles before it meets the sea, carries the considerable momentum it has gathered when it crashes headfirst into the waves of the ocean. It's this junction of the river and ocean waters that can create the treacherous waves -- some as high as 40 feet -- which have earned the Columbia the nickname of 'Graveyard of the Pacific.'


Any ship crossing the Columbia River bar must take on a bar pilot, a boat pilot who is responsible for bringing the boat across the waters safely so it can continue inland. Bar pilots will pull up to a freighter, for example, climb up a ladder along the side of the ship and replace the ship's pilot for the initial portion of it's voyage inland. The bar pilots are a very small, elite corps of Astoria boat pilots who have intimate knowledge of the tricky waters (and sands!) of the Columbia River; any ship trying to enter without a car pilot will be denied entry.




For decades, Astoria was known as the Salmon Canning Capitol of the world. Millions of pounds of salmon were caught and processed here before being sent on to destinations throughout the US. The men who worked in canneries came from all over the world; the Chinese were here as early as the 1880's and the Scandinavians (mostly Finns, from what I understand) also settled here to fish.


Semper Paratus
The museum also included a tribute to the United States Coast Guard, which has played a key role in Astoria's development as a port and ensuring the safety of ships entering and leaving US waters. The sheer volume of freighter traffic and fishing in the Columbia makes the question of potential disaster not an issue of 'if' but 'when.' The USCG maintains buoys, markers and lighthouses and performs rescues to crews and ships when they are in distress. With waters as busy as the ones off the coast, there aren't very many dull moments for the Coast Guard.

new camera

My new camera! I've always wanted a Leica camera but they are fairly expensive (unless I go the e-bay route) and here's the next best thing: a Panasonic camera with Leica optics. I don't mind borrowing N's camera and I am pretty sure he doesn't mind sharing but now we can both be more spontaneous in capturing pictures. And we can also compare pictures when both of us are shooting the same subject.

more from Oregon

As I mentioned in a previous post, the Columbia River is very busy. This was taken just outside my balcony sometime in the late afternoon, it's one of the many ships that passes through on it's way inland or out to the Pacific.





Yet another ship from the balcony...
If you listen carefully and the air is just right, you can often hear the PA announcements to the ship's crew over the sound of the waves outside the windows. You might also hear a sea lion exhaling before it dives under water for salmon, or a cormorant beating its wings against the water to clean the tips.





Nike, the sponsor of the Hood to Coast Relay, gave each team these large magnetic posters to put on the team vans. They're for counting your 'roadkill' or the number of runners you pass during each segment. Neal's team passed 111 over the course of 197 miles. Not bad!
Although the roadkill tally counts the number of people passed, it doesn't take into account the number of times the runner himself/herself was passed.


After checking out of the hotel in Astoria, we headed down the road to the Columbia River Maritime Museum, one of the largest museums devoted to maritime history in the United States. As it turns out, the Columbia is pretty significant to American commerce and the early settlement of the western US. The museum is very new and includes many interactive exhibits. Click here for a link to the museum.

more from on the road

This afternoon, I wandered through the streets of Astoria and drove up to the Astoria Column, one of the main tourist attractions in the town. This is a view of the Columbia River from the plaza of the tower....





This is the Astoria Tower. The carvings on the side are actually quite detailed and depict the story of Lewis and Clark's discovery and subsequent plundering of Oregon.









Detail from one of the information plaques on the Tower lawn.








More detail. Notice how the spelling of "ocean" was "ocian" back when Lewis and Clark first documented their discovery. Given the dynamic nature of language, perhaps one day it will be acceptable for people to spell words as they please -- but I hope not.






Some of the beautiful detail from the tower on a rather foggy day -- just like San Francisco!

As I mentioned earlier in my other blog, I am staying at a new hotel on the Columbia River in Astoria. My room has a small balcony and this is the view looking out onto the river. This is actually a pretty unusual view in that there aren't any ships or boats in this shot: the Columbia is a very busy river, with ships constantly bringing in cargo and fishing boats returning from sea. Astoria is located at junction of the Columbia and the Pacific so navigating entry is supposedly pretty tricky.


This is another shot of the Columbia, but from the window seat -- binoculars included!











View of the room -- fireplace on the left, observation window and balcony to the right and center, respecively.

humor from the relay

Each HTC team is required to have two vans to ferry six members each between transition areas. Many of the teams decorate their vans with magnetic posters, washable window paint and other items so that team members can find them easily at a transition point. Since each team is required to have a name, most will decorate their vans with their team names or drawings that are somehow related to their team name. Many of the team names, in the spirit of the light hearted nature of the race, are humorous: 'L.O.S.T: Lack of Speed and Talent', the 'Go-Nads' (the winner of last year's best team name contest), 'Physical Fatness,' etc. Here's a photo I took of one team's van (click to see detail). The vaan seems pink at first glance, but the team has actually painted the entire vehicle to match their 'Inky Oinkers' theme.

more HTC

The majesty of Mount Hood was the backdrop for the starting line of the Hood to Coast Relay. Groups of 12 runners were sent off fifteen minutes apart with 1000 registered teams in total. Today's weather was outstanding: 80 degrees and sunny and despite the heat of the summer, there were still snowboarding and skiing camps and clinics being run on the mountain at the Timberline Lodge -- you can see the tips of someone's skis here -- and they continue through the official end of summer.

on the road

This sign greeted us late last night at the Nike store -- apparently this relay is a Big Deal. There were dozens of runners waiting for the store to open this morning, teams from all over the world are here to run. Many of the people awaiting Nike's opening were dressed in team uniforms and it seemed that they took this race fairly seriously. Results are based on an honor system of self reporting individual times and adding them up for a team time, so there aren't really any official times as runners are not given a timing chip for the relay.

first post, test test

This is my cat Mars with my BOSU. Perhaps it's not my BOSU as he seems to be getting more use of it these days....