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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This Saturday the 19th, at 10:30am, I’ll be appearing at the 1015 Theater in Astoria, as part of their big Performathon fundraising event, which runs all day and into the night. I’ll be sharing memories of a trip I took on a cargo ship when I traveled from the Columbia River up to Puget Sound and south to San Francisco. It was an unforgettable experience.

Then at 10:45, my husband, Jerry Middaugh, and I will perform some folk music tunes that we hope will entertain you, and leave you with a feeling of hope about the world.

Many thanks to the organizers for inviting us to perform! We hope to see you there!

So come on down and support community theater – an important thing – a place where locals can share themselves and what they love with their community.

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On January 1, 2026, Oregon will require paddlecraft operators to purchase a Waterway Access Permit.

Permits will be available by the week, year and two year intervals. The new law will apply to all paddlecraft 10 feet or longer. That incudes kayaks, standup paddle boards and canoes. Fees for boat registration will also increase slightly.

Fees will help Oregon fight invasive mussels in waterways, and also improve access for paddlecraft at waterway access points that are currently mostly designed for boats.

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