Marooned by bmac62
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No AI - This artwork was created entirely by hand or with traditional digital tools.
Description
The year is 1853. Today is January 10th. I am a sailor from the Barque Vandalia. Yesterday while attempting to cross "The Bar" at the mouth of The Columbia River we struck the middle sands and being at the mercy of the tide and the huge standing waves we sank before we could even lower a lifeboat. Everything happened so fast I did the only thing I could...swam for shore. Here I am all alone, cold and hungry. I hope somebody soon will find me...
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Zoom worthy.
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Note: 1853 was a disastrous year for ships entering The Columbia from The Pacific. Even the ship coming with materials to build a lighthouse on Cape Disappointment sank trying to enter the river in September 1853.
The area in this photo is just a mile or two north of where the lighthouse stands today.

Comments (23)
A nice view of this spot that proved so dangerous for seafarers.
What a beautiful sight and a scary story too. I could almost feel what happened :-o
A great story! But now it looks a very desirable place to be.
Beautiful and serene photo.
Great view, and I love your story! Well done!
beautiful shot interesting notes
A beautiful well framed view Bill and I didn't realize you were that old !!!
Big grins...I feel pretty good for my age of about 185!
Amazing capture my friend. God bless.
Very nice scene and interesting narrative.
Fabulous pic & tale. X
That is a noteworthy location!
Great capture and a interesting story Bill. Learn something every day!
And it looks so serene and peaceful; who would have thought? Wonderful story and breathtaking capture!
Interesting story, great shot!
and the cool (if you want to call it that) point is that the Columbia River Bar still gets the ships and boats - every year you read or hear of someone tangling with the bar and usually losing Beautiful capture and cool history reading
This beautiful landscape would take on a whole different feel were one in his shoes.. A really beautiful and moody capture, Bill! You can sense the loneliness and desperation of a sailor marooned here in those days.
To bad in those days they didn't have gps/radar. Wonderful capture. Aloha
Terrific atmospheric ambience in this photo, Bill. Like a painting, it is. Oh, and mustn't overlook the interesting history of the shipwreck. And, is this the equivalent of the Cape of Good Hope because of its storms?
Wonderful pic and info. I do so miss the west coast.
Getting bogged down trying to cross a bar, sound like my heavy metal singing days in a pub :) Super shooting and the words evoke emotion mate!
Oh yes, this will do me.. I love its loneliness and beauty.. Stunning mate! Rob
Beautiful capture Bill.
First person is a fine way to take us in: We sometimes forget, as viewers, that these lush beautiful scenes carried terror for many visitors (willful and non willful visitors). It's a menacing dangerous looking landscape, but once again you've captured it like a loving parent, and it all seems embraced and calmed by your natural protection. The hills on the left are lush, in your treatment; and you've allowed atmosphere to soften them (ie, you didn't postwork out the mist or haze, a very good choice). And the trees are rendered into lush carpeting---perhaps in part from the atmospherics. These things make this seem like a South Pacific paradise, which is amazing considering that this is way up the coast of the US! The valley's placed as a calm between the two sides; and the trees on the right are fine complements to the hills. And all that mean gray in the water and sky---primal, capable of swallowing lives, yet lovingly caught as the center of this image. A beautiful capture, bill, for all it's inherent tragedy. And composed so well. Lush, misty and beautiful. As a side note, there were shipwrecks on the Great Lakes, some quite powerful, in part because the first shipping journeys had no idea that a lake could cause such trouble. There are songs and legends about the shock and destruction. When you go up the shores of Lake Michigan, there are places along the route that have lore of sunken ships and terrible loss. So I can relate to scenes like this, even though this is on a scale unbeknownst to lake dwellers...