A few listener questions today regarding this week’s tsunami, caused by an earthquake in the ocean to the north of us.

And a few key takeaways:

• Consider this a dry run
• Don’t get complacent
• If you feel an earthquake here, don’t wait for someone to tell you it’s an emergency – head for high ground as fast as you can. You may only have 20 minutes before a damaging tsunami hits.

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Yesterday saw a big 8.7 earthquake off Russian near Alaska, to the north of us. The resulting shockwave sent tsunami waves radiating out into the Pacific in all directions. The ones that came our way were small, but a reminder that we do live on the Ring of Fire, and we need to be prepared.

So today, we’ll talk in part about what all those words mean in the tsunami updates: specifically, Warning, Advisory and Watch

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Yesterday I heard a ship do its five-blast warning signal on the river, letting a sailboat know of its presence and cautioning it to stay out of the ship’s path.

This is a standard horn signal that ships and boats use when they see a potential issue developing and want to head off any possible problems with a nearby vessel.

With Buoy 10 fishing season approaching, it’s a signal we land-dwellers who live near the river may hear more often in August.

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Last week, global internet service provider Starlink experienced a service outage for over two hours, causing difficulties for lots of remote users, including ships and boats, especially those far from land.

While electronics are great, it’s also a good idea to have some old fashioned navigation equipment and skills up your sleeve to enable you to carry on safely until outages are fixed.

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We’ve been talking about other things this week so far. Let’s take a look today at our ship schedule.

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Today, as part of the answer to a listener question, I thought it would be good to take a look at why tides happen. This influence is huge in our lives here on the coast and on the river, and it’s interesting and helpful to understand what’s driving it.

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I was thinking more about tides and thought we could talk more about this complex subject. Yesterday we talked about how high tide happens about 5 hours later in Vancouver than Astoria on the Columbia.

Today we’ll look at tidal range, the height difference between high and low tides and how that is also different between different places on the river. And a look at how fast the tide rises – is it uniform, and is there a way to tell how fast it will rise?

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Today’s show is a bit of a mix: I wanted to thank the folks who came down to the Ten Fifteen Theater to hear my Ship Report talk and to hear Jerry and me perform on stage (eek!), and then a bit about tides, and how there is a vast difference in tidal schedules between what we  Astoria and Vancouver/Portland.

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We see a lot of ships go by on the lower river near Astoria, but the river upstream past Longview is often busier, with a variety of vessel traffic all doing local work: tugs and barges  hauling cargo, ship handling tugs, and ships being moved from anchorages to nearby berths.

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