The Ship Report

Big changes to the Ship Report this week

Big changes happening as of this week, with regard to the show.

Beginning this week, the Ship Report will no longer air on KMUN on Fridays, but will air Monday-Thursday instead, and as a podcast on my website at shipreport.net.

KMUN will air the Ship Report twice a day on the radio, at 8:49 am and again at 5:49 pm, Monday through Thursday.

The changes come on the heels of big federal funding cuts to the station, which have resulted in their needing to make significant programming changes resulting from the loss of NPR programming.

I completely respect the necessity for change in this situation, and support KMUN's efforts to regroup. I'm regrouping myself, and considering what's next for me in terms of Friday podcasts. I'll keep you posted as I sort it out.

In the meantime, as always, I'll continue posting ship schedules on my website (shared on Facebook) and also marine weather on my Ship Report Facebook page.

Thanks for your understanding. More to come.

The Polar Star is home from Antarctica, a sign of fall in the Northern Hemisphere and spring in Antarctica

We see many signs of fall in the Pacific Northwest, as cruise ships head south. One beloved ship, the icebreaker USCGC Polar Star, heads north to Seattle to prepare for another round of her annual mission: Operation Deep Freeze, where she breaks a navigable channel through pack ice to open McMurdo station to the world, which means access to supplies and fuel.

Who's on the river today?

A look at today's ship traffic, and a change in the weather coming this weekend.

On any given day, there's a lot going on upriver with vessels that downriver folk don't see

The Columbia River is a busy water highway, with lots of vessels working, many of them upriver in places that folks near Astoria and even upriver in Portland and Vancouver, don't see. Today we'll talk about some of what happens as vessels do their work upriver.

The research vessel Atlantis is at the Port of Astoria

One of my favorite ships is here in town: the research vessel Atlantis. She's owned by the US Navy and operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, located on Cape Cod. She's been doing research on underwater volcanoes in the Pacific in recent years. She comes into Astoria occasionally to change crews, pick up supplies, etc.

She's a superstar of a ship, she's been the subject of many documentaries about her and her famous submersible, the Alvin. We'll talk about the ship and about times I have been fortunate to go aboard.

Cruise ship pollution and beyond - a look at effluent treatment and handling, at sea and on land.

A listener raised an issue about cruise ships and the pollution they create, so I thought I'd explore that topic today. As I was gathering info, I started looking at how sewage is treated both on land and at sea. Turns out, while wastewater treatment is a lifesaver, we are a planet filled with people, and that can be hard on our waterways, despite modern technology.

The Coastal Jet: an interesting weather phenomenon we could see here this weekend

Today we'll talk more about the weather, which is in for a change this weekend, and about an unusual meteorological phenomenon we could see called the coastal jet that happens from time to time here. It causes winds along the coast to speed up, sometimes dramatically, while winds offshore can be much calmer.

Salt water wedge: a an interesting feature of the Columbia River estuary

Today we'll talk about one of the most fascinating aspects of the lower river: the presence of a massive salt water wedge that occurs when the tide is rising, as heavier salt water sinks beneath fresh river water.

New moons, tides, solar eclipses - all part of our cyclic natural world

The next two weeks are packed with astronomical happenings: a new moon, a solar eclipse, and the autumnal equinox. We'll talk about them in the context of our natural maritime world, where life continues in habitual patterns that play out in tides, moon cycles and waning daylight at this time of year. And, our coastal weather, which continues to see cyclic changes as well.

Serenade of the Seas visits Astoria on a repositioning cruise

This morning we'll see the Serenade of the Seas, a big, blue-water cruise ship that will be docked at the Port of Astoria all day. She's on her way back down south for the winter, having stopped here in May when she was headed north for a summer of cruises in the Puget Sound region and perhaps Alaska.

Astoria's cruise ships are usually these repositioning cruises, which move ships between summer and winter cruising areas, with a stop in between to visit our city. There will be three more of these ships arriving here this fall, the last one in October.