On Tuesday and Wednesday I visited various parts of Fort Stevens State Park, which is as far north and west as one can travel in the state of Oregon. There was a large wooden viewing platform at one of the parking areas which gave a great view of the ocean and of the “south jetty” which was constructed by the US Army Corp of Engineers to protect the “mouth” of the Columbia River as it dumps into the Pacific Ocean.
This is looking south:
And this is looking north, along the jetty:
Those were both taken at relatively low tide.
Next I went to another parking area, this time overlooking the first few miles of the Columbia River. Washington state is on the other side of the river.
And lo and below, across the river was another US Coast Guard helicopter which appeared to be involved in a training exercise – hovering low over the water. I didn’t see any divers being raised or lowered as I did further down the coast about a week and a half ago. From when I first noticed it until it left the area probably close to 45 minutes had elapsed.
At one point the helicopter raised up and made a slow counter-clockwise loop before resuming it’s hovering stance low over the water.
I presume this was a training exercise. Pilots can train on flight simulators all day long but there is no substitute for practice under real-life conditions, especially given the effect that strong and sometimes variable winds near the water can have on an aircraft.
One last stop in Fort Stevens State Park, which I didn’t do until Wednesday because it had gotten so windy the day before, was to another parking area further south in the park, overlooking the ocean. Unfortunately I wasn’t affected by wind but by fog:
And the thing you see on the left hand side of the bottom photo is part of an old shipwreck. The ship Peter Iredale ran aground here on October 25, 1906 while attempting to enter the Columbia River. The ship remained largely intact and all the people on board were successfully removed from it but before it could be pulled back to sea it listed to one side and started to break up with the forces of the ocean acting upon it.
This is all that remains:
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