North Jetty

The last few times we have visited Cape Disappointment State Park, the end of North Jetty has been closed because the river is being dredged in order to deepen the shipping passage.

This time we were able to see the dredge doing its work.  

A closer view of the dredge ship.

We couldn’t walk all the way to the south end of the beach because of the work going on at the jetty.

This area, where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean is such an interesting area.  We never get tired of exploring here.

Cormorants

When we are this close to Cape Disappointment Lighthouse, we can see that it needs a paint job!

Cape Disappointment’s other lighthouse is North Head, which is visible from Benson Beach at the campground. 

Cathlamet, WA

We are heading to Cape Disappointment State Park for a few days and our site there is not available until tomorrow, so we stopped for one night at the Port of Cathlamet, WA, also known as Elochoman Marina.

Our RV site isn’t great, just a parking place with electric and water (no sewer), and a fairly high price of $25.  But fast, free wifi is included in the price, we have a good Verizon cell signal, 50 amp service, and the site is a pull-through.  The views of the Columbia River are priceless.

     

The town of Cathlamet is an easy walk from the Port via a waterfront trail.Cathlamet (Cath-la’met) derives from the Chinook work “calamet”, meaning stone, and was given to the tribe because they lived along a rocky river bed.  Cathlamet was sighted in 1792 by Lt. WR Broughton, an officer in Captain Vancouver’s fleet.

In 1805, Lewis and Clark led their Corps of Discovery into the Cathlamet area and the Wahkiakum County shores.  The explorers wrote about trading with the two Native American tribes, Cathlamet and Wahkiakum. 

 

When James Birnie retired from the Hudson’s Bay Company, he founded a trading post “Birnie’s Retreat” in 1846.  His establishment launched Cathlamet on the Washington shore.  Today you can take a self-guided walk or drive and see twenty historical sites in Cathlamet.

   

Along the Astoria Waterfront, OR

Welcome to another new blog follower, Al, whose blog is Travel with the Bayfield Bunch.  Al is an ace photographer and he has already given me some tips on how to improve my photographs.  Now I just need to follow his advice.  I am new to photography, and I have an uncomplicated basic camera, so I’m always surprised when my pictures turn out at all! 

Dave and I bicycled along the Astoria waterfront this afternoon.  Along the way, I stopped to take a few pictures.

This is the Maritime Museum, one of the highlights of Astoria.  (That’s my bicycle in the picture.)

Astoria is slowly turning the old canneries into tourist destinations.  The following photos are of Pier 39. 

One of the popular tourist activities in Astoria is to take a ride on the Waterfront Trolley.  That’s the bike/walking path on the left of the trolley.

Not all the buildings have been refurbished yet.

It’s always fun to see ships in Astoria.  Four of these grain ships were all lined up on the Columbia River.  
Here’s another interesting old building.  We saw for sale signs and for lease signs on this one, the old Fisher Bros. Linen Thread Company.

Fishing boats at the marina

Tomorrow we head for home, which is only a two hour drive.  We’ll be back again to visit one of our favorite cities, Astoria, Oregon.

Thanks for visiting along with us!

Japan's Nippon Maru Cruise Ship Visits Astoria, OR

We arrived in Astoria, Oregon, this afternoon for a three-day stay.  We saw a sign at a bus stop about a cruise ship, and sure enough, a cruise ship was docked in Astoria.  We couldn't stop with the motorhome, but after we checked in at Lewis and Clark Golf and RV Resort we went back to the cruise ship area in the car. 

This ship, the Nippon Maru, was from Japan and will be cruising for about 50 or more days.  They sailed from Kobe, Japan, and after Astoria they are headed to Alaska.  This was a medium-sized cruise ship, but still a wonderful sight to see.  When we were in Astoria a year ago, we saw the World Cruise Ship.  A little before 6pm we went back to watch the ship depart.  The captain blew an interesting, loud farewell using several different horn sounds.  The Japanese cruisers stood on one of the decks and did a wave/dance routine.  Awesome!

I couldn't find an Astoria news item about this ship, but I found the following information from the ship's first stop in Guam:

Piti, Guam, May 17, 2010: The Nippon Maru sailed into Guam’s harbor yesterday morning bringing 432 passenger and crew to the island for a two-day visit.

The cruise vessel arrived at 6:30 a.m. Sunday and will depart at 6 p.m. this evening. The ship has 250 Japanese passengers and 182 crew members on board. According to the ship’s agent, Inchcape, the vessel sailed here from Kobe, Japan and the next 11 stops include Tarawa, Nawiliwili, Honolulu, Manzanillo, San Diego, San Francisco, Astoria, Victoria, Juneau, Yokohama and back to Kobe.

We took a walk on the waterfront path and saw the Astoria Waterfront Trolley. 

The Astoria-Megler bridge carries Highway 101 across the Columbia River for four miles, crossing from Oregon into Washington. This is near where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean.

A view of Astoria from the waterfront viewing tower.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's post about more of our Astoria sightseeing adventures.

Fort Worden

Charlie and Pam left this morning and we are leaving tomorrow morning.  We had a great time despite the iffy weather.  We've seen several ships today, including an aircraft carrier.  It was too foggy to get a good picture of it, but here's a picture of the car carrier we saw:

This morning we went for a long walk at Fort Worden.  Here are some of the houses along Officer's row:

Rainbow

It's raining today, but I am looking at a rainbow that is appearing underneath the clouds. The rainbow keeps fading in and out, but I was able to capture it at the same time a ship was passing by.  I've also seen two container ships and a tugboat pulling two other ships.   All the the ships have come from the west today which means they are heading for a port.

We just moved to our new site at the same park.  We had to leave the good site that has 50 amp.  It was already reserved for the weekend when we made our reservations.  Now we are in a 30 amp site until we leave on Tuesday.  The new site still has a good view of the strait.  Maybe it will be a little less windy in this site since it's not located on the point.  Charlie and Pam will arrive later today and park next to us.

The bad news is that Dave is sick today.  He felt very dizzy during the night and thought he was better this morning, but soon realized that he was still dizzy.  After going back to bed for a few hours he was able to summon up the energy to get us unhooked from the old site and moved and hooked up to the new site.  Now he's back in bed.

These pictures were taken from inside the motorhome.  Can you see the raindrops on our front window?