Maritime Museum

This is the Lightship Columbia, we got to tour it as part of the Maritime Museum.  A description of what it was is in a picture at the top.  Again, you can click on it for a larger view.

I decided to take a picture of the flag and got an eagle in the picture as well.  That's the second time I've done that on a trip to Astoria!

These are the bunks.  Tim's taking a little cat nap.

I wish it were sunnier while we were there....

There were only one or two ships when we first got into Astoria but soon it became 8 or 9 (I don't have all of them in this shot.)  Some of them had funny names like Brown Bean and such.  I didn't take any pictures while in the museum but I did read some interesting stuff about the mouth of the Columbia.  There was a video of one of these huge ships trying to get in from the ocean.  Apparently the force of the river coming out and meeting the force of the Ocean coming in makes that point the most dangerous place for boats in the world.  There's a map of all the shipwrecks located around it. Let's just say there are A LOT! The video of the waves tossing around these ships is mind-blowing!  These two forces also make a natural sandbar.  To get rid of the sandbar so ships could come in and out they made the jetty, which actually makes the wave condition much much worse!  INSANE!