pirate hunting
The day after my bike ride I learned that the ships I’d glimpsed would only be in town until Thursday morning. I was determined to get a shot, and so after getting home from work I packed up my camera and tripod and set out for the waterfront. I arrived to better conditions than I had hoped for: the rain had stopped, the clouds had parted to reveal the light of the setting sun, and the ships were circling one another, cannons firing. I found a decent vantage point just above the water line and, shouting my joy into the aether, set up shop with my camera and started taking pictures.
Things couldn’t be better. I had the light, I had a good spot to set up my tripod, and I had the ships easily in my sights. All I had to do was wait for them to cross paths again so I could get a good shot of them firing at each other.
Except they didn’t want to play along.
One of the ships had drifted down towards the Ross Island Bridge. I trained my camera on it, waiting for a shot when it turned around, but as I waited the other joined it, and the two retreated beyond the bridge and outside of my field of view.
I waited for a few minutes, grumbling in frustration, hoping they would come back before I completely lost the light. With the sun sinking fast and no sign of them coming back I realized I probably wasn’t going to be able to keep a promise I’d made not an hour before to come back with close up shots unless I packed up and chased these pirates down the river.
Dammit.
The stretch of the river along the west bank of the Willamette between the Marquam and Ross Island bridges is a remnant of an earlier time before Portland saw the value of having public space along the river and most of the area was industrial. I jogged back up to the road out of sight of the river, walked down past a fenced off lot that seemed to be used only to grow chest-high weeds, a private parking lot, a fenced-off lot of gravel and assorted concrete rubble, an office park, and a ship yard before I was finally able to veer back towards the river, hoping that the ships hadn’t doubled back yet. I was starting to think I’d missed out before I walked around some of the new condos that are going up along the south waterfront and found them hiding away.
I found out later that the one on the right is the Hawaiian Chieftain; the one on the left is the Lady Washington, and was in all three Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
I watched them furl their sails and turn around; as the sun dipped below the horizon they turned on their lights and started puffing smoke as they fired up their diesel motors. I think this just goes to show that pirates are cheaters.
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