June, 2021
This morning I drove 15 minutes or so from the campground into Astoria in order to visit the Maritime Museum there. I’ll show some of that to you in a future blog post. But first let me show you this gorgeous day and the Columbia River and a few other snapshots of Astoria’s waterfront.
I parked and walked out onto a pier that was built out over the river. Docked at the pier was a US Coast Guard cutter (the USCGC Steadfast) that was getting a ton of electrical work done on it. I wanted to go see what they were doing but, not surprisingly, they wouldn’t let the public anywhere near the work.
So I took some photos of the river and the Astoria-Megler bridge … Oregon to the left … Washington way over on the right, WAY over on the right. In fact, the Washington/Megler end of the bridge is almost out of the photo on the right.
Here’s a close-up below of a portion of the waterfront of Astoria, along with the very high section of the bridge … high enough for huge ocean-going ships to cruise under. Boy, it would be really something to see a ship come in, wouldn’t it?
But all was quiet out on the river, so I walked along the pier back towards land, but stopped to gaze again up along the waterfront and the piers and buildings of Astoria.
Some of the piers and buildings were long gone, although the pilings that held them up were still there.
Makes me wonder what building had been here in the past, on those pilings now coated in green slime.
I was just about to turn and walk back towards the Maritime Museum, but I looked up instead, along the waterfront again. Zounds!! Look at that ship coming in!! I swear it was just a few feet away from the buildings. The large, tall, white structure to the left is the wheel house of the ship. If you’re wondering if the ship is docked here, just look at the bow wake as the ship moves through the water. She’s moving; she’s heading up river.
The upper deck at the bow of the ship, where the people are standing, is about 50 feet above the water. The “fluke” of the anchor in the photo below is about 8 feet long, as long as from your floor to your ceiling in most homes.
Obviously, this ship was quite a ways away from the buildings on the Astoria waterfront, not just a few feet away, but it sure looked close given the angle that I had on it.
I wish I had stayed right where I was and I wish I had taken a video of the ship coming right along the waterfront. But I got so excited that I literally ran (well, jogged) back out to the end of that pier and then took video of the ship from that vantage point.
In the video below, you’ll see one of the anchors being lowered. The ship was going to anchor in the river, after it got further up the river. Notice the water coming out the hole where the chain comes out. Does anyone know why water is coming out of that hole?
The ship cruised slowly past me and continued to head up river towards other ships that were already anchored. (Be sure to take note of the sky and the clouds in the background of these photos … it’s gorgeous.)
I loved the clouds in the sky this day.
Our ship is in the center above, still heading up river.
It passed those two ships, then it passed two more (on the right in the photo above), then it passed yet another two ships (in the photo below) …
And finally it passed one more ship (in the photo below).
Our ship finally anchored upriver from the ship in the photo above. When she did finally anchor, most of our ship was hidden by a bend in the river so I didn’t get video or photos of it anchoring.
Our ship, the Lowlands Maine, is a bulk carrier that was built in 2005 and is about 740 feet long. More information about her can be found HERE.
I had thought it would be so cool to see a ship coming in under the bridge. Little did I know I’d see one!
And yet, here’s a photo of those clouds in the sky. Amazing.
