Saturday 10/15/2011

7:00 AM Start Survey

7:12 AM Xiao Xiao (Hongkong) / upriver

8:03 AM The Terrapin Island, the dredger that had been working near the upstream mammal spotter does a u-turn, just barely visible at the bend in the river.

8:18 AM Terrapin Island (New York, NY) returns, but keeps going this time, heading off downriver. 

8:20 AM Bald eagle in fight with two seagulls. Eagle flips upside-down with claws outstretched to try to snag seagull, but it darts away every time. Finally, the eagle gives up and flies off ESE.

8:23 AM The small motorboat the Thames River, which is apparently the crew boat for the Terrapin Island, floats sideways downriver, approximately in the center of the river. As it reaches the bend in the river downstream, it stutters to life and roars off back upriver.

8:46 AM Somewhere downstream out of sight, a ship's horn sounds. One long blast, followed by 4 shorter ones. 5 in total, so indication of 'danger'. Pause. Then blasts again. Then pause. The horn lays on and stays on, for 45+ seconds. So curious about what's going on! A slightly lower pitched horn sounds, then the higher pitched one blasts. Silence. No ships appear, so no idea what happened.

8:54 AM Great blue heron

9:08 Confidence Ocean (Panama) / upriver. It's sounding it's horn, as fog has rolled in as of the last ten minutes. The ship pushes through the fogbank, and stops sounding it's foghorn as it comes out the other side. This ship, like all the others I've seen so far, is flying a red and white flag that means a Pilot is on board. Pilots specific to the Columbia River are required on every ship, to prevent the possibility of unfamiliar navigators getting into wrecks in the complicated river channel.

11:04 AM Mary G (Monrovia) / downriver

12:00 PM Pacific Celebes (Hong Kong) / upriver

2:19 PM Yong Feng (Hong Kong) / downriver

2:23 PM Tug: Sea Commander with a load of scrap metal / upriver

The Yong Feng and recycling tugboat crossing paths.

2:53 PM Tug: Alsea Bay pulling a Sause Bros barge.

3:56 PM Line of cormerants on their favorite log. Got this picture by putting my camera up to my binoculars to get a better zoom. Amazingly, it worked!

4:24 PM Lavieen Rose (Panama) / downriver. This ship is one that crashed into a barge waiting at Wauna Paper Mill, and destroyed their docks earlier this year. Fortunately, nobody was killed!

4:30 PM End Survey