Sparkling Morning

Finally, a warm, calm morning that I was around to enjoy!

The Little John must be the handsomest little working boat in the harbor. All squared away save for the cups and saucers sitting aft of the house, she's tiny and "all business".

Floating Oxymoron

The General Somervell, a large vehicle landing ship, tied up at the 17th Street Pier this morning. The terms "Army" and "ship" just have never fit together in my mind, and this ship is a visual example as to why that is.

It just looks like a blunt instrument. There isn't a clean, efficient line on her.

I know she's built for a specific job and is doubtless quite good at it, but when not sliding up to a beach, she looks like a bouyant brick.

Wind, wood, canvas and...

So, you come home from work, make yourself some dinner and take care of some other chores. You glance out the bedroom window and you see this... what do you do?

Well, after my neck recovered from the violent double-take, I ran downstairs and and started changing lenses. After my vantage point from across the street couldn't do me any better than this, I ran back inside, grabbed The Bag and plopped it all in the car and took off. The drive is only a few blocks, and I'd normally walk or run it, but the ship was really clipping along, and I knew it would be out of sight soon.



I parked the car, grabbed the gear and crashed through the Scotch broom along the makeshift trails in the filled lagoon until I popped up to the abandoned railroad tracks, and found the ship plying along directly in front of me.

As I composed the shot, I noticed the oncoming freighter for the first time, and my eyes widened again at the cargo lashed atop her decks... sections of stanctions for wind-turbine generators.

Just how long are those odds, anyway?

I waited for the ships to line up and squeezed off a series of shots.

When I got back and did some quick edits, I sent a copy to Joanne at shipreport.net, amongst other people.

Joanne asked permission to use the image at the website, and I was happy to grant it. I didn't think a lot more about that until our UPS driver said "Hey, I heard you have a photo on the ship report's website"

Joanne's comments were very nice to hear. I just feel extremely lucky to live where I do, and to have the vantage point that I do from my living room and bedroom.

The tall ship is the Hawaiian Chieftain, and the bulk carrier is the Blue Marlin I.  Both were shot just west of Tongue Point.

Outbound Celebrity

Saddle Mountain is in the background. The ship was just pulling away from the dock as I was passing on my way home. I headed north over the Astoria-Megler Bridge to "race" it out to Cape Disappointment. This was the first of the big cruise ships to make a port call in Astoria this year, but she won't be the last.

Internet Coincidence

A panorama comprised of three separate frames and then cropped.  There are three individual ships in the image, but two are nearly obscured by surface fog.  You'll have to click on the image to see the details.

The ship in the foreground is the Ocean Beauty, a fleet-mate of the Sammi Crystal.

The coincidence referred to in the header would not be realized until a couple of years after the photo was made.

Bouys, a boat and a bulker

And, I might add, an ever-present bridge.

Some calm between storms in the new year.

Shot 1/2/2009.

The "boat" (as opposed to "ship") is Astoria's own Arrow 2, the Columbia River Pilot vessel.  She may look like "Little Toot", but this is a very task-oriented craft.  Very little wasted movement, and occasionally some astonishingly balletic moves when traffic is heavy.

Christmas Morning

With all of the fun of holiday travel (and not travel) and intermittent power outages over the last several days, I didn't really get a chance to get anything updated when I'd hoped to.

Christmas morning began with a pre-dawn deluge of snow that didn't let up until close to noon. I've lived in lots of places, and some where a white Christmas might even have been a reasonable expectation, but I think this is the first time that I've actually gone through snowfall on the actual morning.

I was supposed to be in Portland for the holiday, but with the valley under a sheet of ice, travel was not a smart idea. So, I went for a long walk from my own place instead.

The ships are pretty average, the river relatively calm, but the heavy dusting on the trees and hills on the Washington side of the river made for some unusual (for this area) shots.