Ships that pass . . .

I was back down at our daughter's home in Oregon again last week. One beautiful sunny day I sat at the edge of the Columbia River eating my lunch and watched this ship appeared quietly heading in the direction of Portland.


I know nothing about boats or life on the river. I was impressed by the way it quietly pushed through the water. The people living in the homes came out and watched it go by as well. They must see boats go by all day long -- how could you get anything done beside watching the river traffic?

A search on Wikipedia brought this information:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The M/V Tustumena is a mainline ferry vessel for the Alaska Marine Highway System.
The M/V Tustumena was constructed in 1963 in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin and refurbished in 1969 in San Francisco. As the only mainline ferry in Southcentral Alaska and the Aleutian Chain, it principally runs between Kodiak, Seldovia, Port Lions, and Homer with Homer providing a road link to the other communities on the Kenai Peninsula (Seldovia) and the Kodiak Island area (Kodiak and Port Lions). The only interruptions from this schedule occur when making a voyage out the Aleutian Chain (the Aleutian Chain run consist of the communities of Akutan, Chignik, Cold Bay, False Pass, King Cove, Sand Point, and Unalaska/Dutch Harbor) which the vessel undergoes eight times a year all of which occur during the summer as winter weather becomes too dangerous. The M/V Tustumena will be in a shipyard for maintenance after November 7, 2008 and the M/V Kennicott will serve Homer and Kodiak for the entire winter season.

So, I can assume that I saw it as it neared the end of its journey to the maintenance port. Isn't it amazing what we can learn on the Internet?

Then there was this boat that looked like a tubby toy by comparison.


Mrs.RGS