While we’ve driven up the coast through Oregon into Washington before, we hadn’t stopped in the Astoria area before. We learned that the mouth of the Columbia River, where the river empties into the ocean, is very dangerous and is the spot of the worst wave action anywhere in the world! There are lots of shipwrecks in the river and along the coast.

We visited the Maritime Museum in Astoria which had lots of boats and ships, either partial or whole, telling the story of the history of this area. Maps of all the shipwrecks showed how dangerous this area was and still is.

There was a lot of information about the salmon fishing and canning business, which boomed in the 19th century here. There was also a lot of information about the shipping industry along the Columbia River. The day we visited the museum we saw five large container ships moored in the river waiting to head either up or down the river.

We also were able to tour a “Lightship” which is like a lighthouse but uses a ship instead of a building on the land. The lightship was anchored in one stop along the shore and crews came and went on other boats. Each crew was about 10-12 men including a couple of officers and they spent 8 weeks on the ship and then went back to shore for 4 weeks. If the weather didn’t permit a change of the crew on the day expected, the crew just had to suck it up and stay longer.

Here are some pictures Jeff took at the lightship: