Columbia River Estuary - Graveyard of the Pacific

[airsix]

I live in Eastern Washington on the Columbia River. Yesterday I was bored and decided to do some research on the Columbia. I thought I might be able to find info on wrecks or perhaps riverside ghost-towns/missions/forts that might provide some dives of archeological interest. That led me to the history of the Astoria, Oregon area - the mouth of the Columbia. I learned this area is known as "The Graveyard of the Pacific" with over 600 documented wrecks! Whoa. That's a lot of sunk ships. What I didn't find is ANY information about underwater exploration of this area. I'm sure the conditions are terrible (it's sunk 600+ vessels), but I would have thought that with such a high concentration of wrecks there would be considerable exploration conducted. Anybody have anything to share about this area and its history?

-Ben

 

[Cold_H2O]

The Columbia is wide and swift with extremely heavy boat traffic. I can only imagine that any attempt to dive her would be dangerous to say the least. There is a reason why there have been so many wrecks there. It is swift and brutal. I would be interested in hearing more about what you find out.

 

[Charlie99]

The Columbia River bar is where the Coast Guard has does its training for heavy weather / high surf.

The pilot association there was the first one in the world to go 100% to helicoptor drop off / pickup of pilots, due to problems of boat-to-ship transfers of pilots.

You'll have to pick your dive days verrrrrrrrry carefully and have a boat that can handle heavy weather.

 

[In2N2]

I've been asking myself the same questions. I'm definately very interested in diving in this area, though I'm sure the waters are more than treacherous, and I'm going to start doing some research about it. Let me know if you come accross any more info.
Cheers