“Great joy, as we are in view of the Ocean, this great Pacific Ocean which we have been so long anxious to see, and the roaring of the waves breaking on the rocky shore may be heard distinctly.” These excited words from William Clark on November 7, 1805, could easily have been spoken by any one of us as we greeted this new day on the foredeck of the National Geographic Sea Lion. We were positioned just inside the great Columbia River Bar, gazing out at the surf crashing on the horizon just ahead. Caspian Terns circled curiously overhead and Brown Pelicans flop-dived alongside us. It was a spectacular beginning to a most extraordinary day.
The day’s highlight for many of us was our time at Fort Clatsop, the 1805-1806 winter headquarters for the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery. The dense forest setting hardly had changed in the two centuries since those intrepid interlopers spent several months here on the edge of the continent. The years melted away as we explored the site, catching a sense of the excitement of discovery even as we recalled the challenge of wilderness survival.
We rounded off our morning’s adventures with a visit to the Columbia River Maritime Museum on the waterfront of Astoria, the oldest Anglo-American settlement on the Pacific Coast. Here we were reminded once again of the perilous nature of this yawning mouth of the Mighty Columbia.
The afternoon was a time for options. Some of us ventured out in kayaks and our new expedition landing craft, spotting an occasional bald eagle, osprey, and more than a few diving ducks. Others immersed ourselves in more of the legend and lore of Lewis and Clark, visiting Station Camp and Cape Disappointment. To say this day was not a disappointment would be the ultimate in understatement.
