THE ship’s approach along the Oregon Coast had been a very dramatic one. Seas on starboard side were in turmoil as we neared shore. Like a kettle at fierce boil, it was churning up strange white froth of waves unlike anything I’d ever seen in all my years of ocean travel.Mesmerising, it was reassuring to see we were running a safe distant parallel to it. One can certainly sense the tension of any ship’s captain faced with the challenge of crossing directly through it when at its worst.

What we didn’t realise at the time was that wild scene was actually part of the infamous “bar” where 2,000 vessels have foundered, giving the area the title “Graveyard of the Pacific”.

If an announcement had been made from the bridge, we certainly never heard it. The sound system on Regent’s Seven Seas Mariner’s deck nine left much to be desired, crackling and fading in and out. When any general announcement was made intended to reach our suite 927, we’d step out into the hall and try to decipher it.

Although our suite was definitely “posh”, we’d not followed the traditional origin of that word in selecting it. English going out to India chose port side staterooms, then on the return starboard ones. Thus evolved the word posh . . . “Port out, starboard home”.

Going to Alaska, we always do the opposite, since much of the glorious scenery northward bound is on starboard side. Then returning down the Inside Passage, the drama of Vancouver Island’s mountain landscapes, often road-less along the coast, is spellbinding from your verandaK>Astoria’s<$> location is both interesting and strategic. About ten miles inland from the Pacific, it sits along the shores of the wide and mighty Columbia River. Just across a giant bridge is the state of Washington.The river was first explored by American Captain John Gray in 1792. He named it after his ship, The Cmbia<$>. That event inspired President Thomas Jefferson to send Lewis and Clark overland to explore the region and look for a Northwest Passage to the Pacific. Their epic journey of 1804-1806 is observed in the west as though recent history.

Like all those fascinated by the world’s great seas and waterways, we’ve accumulated enough visits to maritime museums to fill a book. So when volunteers at the dock mentioned Astoria’s was really exceptional, worth seeing if we had to bypass other attractions, we were easily convinced by their enthusiasm.

They were not overstating its appeal. Waters offshore, locally known as “the bar”, are rated among the most treacherous in the world. A skeleton of one of the many ships that didn’t make it is still visible on the beach. The Peter Iredale, a British bark, ran aground in 1905.

Two thousand ocean-going vessels a year pass through here delivering cargo along the Columbia River. Just as ships are guided in and out of world ports by pilots, the same is true here where “the bar” presents an especially temperamental challenge.

Seven hundred men have lost their lives there and even today, it’s not unusual for there to be 300-400 coast guard rescues a year between a combination of waves, tides and fog.

In 1977 the National Transportation Safety Board declared Columbia River’s bar “a specially hazardous area”. It’s the only river bar in the 88,000-plus miles of US coastline given this designation. Even the museum entrance is unusual, with whale harpoons used as a fence. Displays are dramatic, with an actual life boat being tossed about by giant waves and a life ring being thrown to endangered mA display<$> explanation brings the scene to life. “When millions of gallons of fresh water collide with ocean swells, resulting waves, enlarged by steady winds and shallow shifting shoals can tower 40 feet high. Fog often shrouds the bar 200 days a year. It’s no place for the timid.”You can spend hours here — and we did — viewing a very unusual collection. A US naval officer’s dress sword found 131 years after his shipwreck, a large collection of actual lights from vintage lighthouses explores and explains the Lighthouse Service, harpoon guns and weapons . . . and on and on.

One turns from a recreated salmon cannery (there were more than 40 active canneries) to an impressive display of scrimshaw art. Vintage deep- sea diving outfits share floor space with incredible ship models and sextants. View a “Wall of Shipwrecks” and go inside a tugboat pilot house.

Wonderfully eclectic is the perfect description. Everything from native-made tools for fishing, hunting and trade goods to a wall of salmon can labels . . . it’s all introduced by a welcoming film giving excellent orientation.

There’s even a Royal Navy timber from the MS Racoon with copper sheathing from Wales. I’d visited the very region in Wales famous for that work and it had been explained there in interesting detail.

While you’re wandering through these displays, picture windows overlook the river, where there’s always some kind of attention-getting cargo either coming or going.

Museum admission is $8 for adults, $7 for seniors, $4 for youths aged six to 17, and it’s only $6 for lucky cruise passengers. That also included touring the ltship Columbia<$> docked beside the museum which is open daily from 9.30 a.m. to 5 p

A previous <$>lightship was tossed onto the beach at Cape Disappointment in 1899 when its anchor chain let go in a terrible storm. This one served from 1950 to 1979. They function in places too deep and difficult for actual lighthouse construction.Seventeen men were on board, ten on duty at all times. Essentially, it was equivalent of a small town anchored five miles at sea. With a 7,000-pound anchor, it was stocked with 12 tons of food, 13,000 gallons of fresh water and 47,000 gallons of fuel.

Crawling up and down its steep ladders and poking into every corner of the lightship was intriguing. The men were on duty on two to four weeks’ rotation. Most would describe it as “long stretches of monotony and boredom, mixed with riding out gale-force storms with 30-foot waves”.

In this era of more sophisticated navigation tools, the lightship has now been replaced by gigantic automated warning lights.

Time was flying, so we rushed off to find the shop where that lighthouse fabric we so admired was originally purchased. By now we’d forgotten its name, but asking directions along the way, everyone knew the place.

“You have to mean Jo-Ann on Commercial Street.”

It turns out to be wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling shelves of every kind of material imaginable. Except for a lighthouse pattern. Unfortunately, it had been sold out, probably to other people who admired it at the dock.

But there was some very unusual Route 66 cloth detailing some of that famous highway’s major attractions, which brought back memories of our many trips along that fabled route. Of course, we couldn’t resist, didn’t have any idea what we’d do with it, but had never seen anything like it.

Another pleasant discovery . . . racks of silk flowers, not tacky, artificial looking ones, but so authentic in appearance that even this flower lover was impressed.

On any cruise, we usually rush into the first port and buy a collection of live plants to brighten our stateroom. Last cruise, Crystal had needlessly used some kind of strong cleaning solution on our already immaculately spotless sofa and a couple of the perfect miniature rose plants, gorgeous until then, immediately curled up and died.

In our current suite, Regent’s>Mariner <$>had a bud vase with two sparse, sad, lonely little buds that never opened. So we loaded up on ten bunches of silk beauties. Fabric and flowers were an amazing bargain at $46.

Three bunches of white tea roses, two of pink, one of blue New England asters, and four bunches of multicolour spring bouquets brought new life to the suite and since we’re surrounded by flowers at home, we like to do the same travelling.

Unfortunately, we missed a firefighters’ museum of vintage fire-fighting equipment we later learned about, along with the 123-foot landmark monument above the city that pictorially recalls its history . . . good reasons for an encore visit to a town with personality.

There’s even a 1,700-square-foot suite available above historic Pier 14’s Pilot Station. Appropriately named Pilot House, it offers three bedrooms, three baths, kitchen and even a private d.Reading<$> about it in a brochure picked up in town, it certainly sounded very tempting. That’s something special about cruises . . . they introduce a traveller to places one would like to revisit on a longer stay, which we do.The location offers great views of ocean-going ships, as well as comings and goings of pilots leaving to guide them along the river. It’s all located on a vintage wharf supported on traditional pilings.

On the Register of National Historic Sites, that location has been home to the Columbia River Pilots, guiding ships up the river from Astoria to Portland for 150 years.

Two lighthouses are nearby, one at Cape Disappointment. We wondered where that name originated and soon found out. Spaniards had arrived in the 1700s, followed by the British Royal Navy which gave it that name when they were unable to find a river channel in 1788. They had searched for an entrance among shoals near that rocky headland.

Today, it’s home to a US Coast Guard Station staffed by 50 crew members. The National Motor Lifeboat School is also there, focusing on rough weather and surf rescue operations.

Type in “Shipwrecks On Columbia River bar” for reams of Internet information.

[obox] Next week: A nostalgic return to Prince Rupert, British Columbia

Astoria’s maritime museum is exceptional