Norwegian Pearl

September 20, 2010

As I was driving back from Warrenton, I noticed that the Norwegian Pearl had just left the dock and was on her way toward the bar and back out to sea. Several cars were parked where the road from the Port Docks meets the river near Young's Bay. It's a great place to watch ships. At the moment, the N.P. didn't seem to be moving, or not very fast. She was in one of my earlier posts.

There are often a lot of seagulls on the bay where it enters the river, but I've never seen them swarm around the front of a ship before. They were here in droves and nowhere else near the ship. Maybe this is common. I don't usually see the ships from this vantage point when they're not moving.

It seems that either the rainy/drizzly weather or dinner was keeping most of the passengers indoors.

A fishing boat was also heading out.

There she goes. The shipping lane is pretty interesting. The bar and then the open ocean are way to the right, then left and out of sight, but the big ships first go left, following the channel and the curve of the land, then they follow the land to the right, making a big long curve before they get to the ocean. If you enlarge the second photo, you'll see a tiny light on a ship way in the distance following this route.

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The Norwegian Pearl in Astoria

Who knows the future, but yesterday felt like perhaps the last festive day of summer here, so I took advantage of it. I usually reserve the photo essays for my personal blog, but for whatever reason, here are seven photos describing the visit of the Norwegian Pearl yesterday. We knew the cooler weather was coming in soon, and we knew that yesterday was going to be either "nice" or "freakin' hot," depending on your point of view. I vote for "it was hot," but I talked with some people who said, "Are you kidding? We're from Vegas. This is chilly." Eight-eight degrees. Right. But a lot of people were having fun in Astoria yesterday. Believe it or not, there were two big cruise ships in town at one time. One tied up at the Port Docks on the west side of town (photo from an earlier blog post), which is the usual place these ships dock, so they had to find another place for the Norwegian Pearl. That's why we had the unusual experience of having a large cruise ship anchored in the river off of the Maritime Museum on the east side of town, near my shop.

I saw at least three of these red-and-white tenders bringing passengers from the ship to the dock.

Here are two of them at the 17th Street dock. On the river beyond the dock railings, you can see a tanker and a dredge going about business as usual, which is one of the attractions here.

Two orcas and a handful of yellow-shirted handsome photographers and greeters with the shipping line met the cruise passengers as they came up the plank. Come to think of it, I'll bet the orca costumes got hot as the day went on, but then I'm sure Astoria is cooler than some places this cruise ship lands.

A band called the Columbia Crew played old favorite music that everyone seemed to enjoy, including me. This is the same anchor exhibiting a very different persona from the last time we saw it.

That anchor is right next to the unusually-shaped Maritime Museum, which has world-class exhibits, including real boats and ship parts, and a map of the wrecks on the river-bottom. I haven't shown it before because (a) I've had other things I wanted to show and (b) due to the lighting, angles and size, I've had a hard time getting the picture I wanted. For now, the mystery is solved. This is the museum. I'll try to come up with a more artistic shot one of these days. The four flags flying are the U.S. Flag, the Oregon state flag, the Maritime Museum flag, and the Chinook tribal flag. It's very cool, and I'll feature it another time.

Finally, I was rather dismayed to encounter this thing. Normally, the pier is open to locals and tourists for wandering about, but cruise security apparently needed to co-opt our pier. However, this is nothing compared to the security when a cruise ship comes in at the Port Docks. Check out the 8th photo in this post. I don't think it was like this a few years ago, which is a sad comment on today's society. But sad was minimal. Many of the local shops thrive on tourism, and a day like today is a big help for them. People wandering around town seemed in good spirits. People trying to buck the inflated traffic, less so. I've not figured out why vehicular traffic increases when a ship is in, unless people come to meet their friends. Anyone know? [P.S. See first comment.]

What summer event does your town look forward to?