Saturday, June 9, 2012

The dock from Misawa Japan

I drove to Newport Oregon yesterday to get some photographs of the dock that washed ashore from the tsunami that hit Japan last year.



Autumn...
I don't have television, and I rarely watch the news, as most of the time it is depressing. If it hadn't been for Yahoo listing it in their ticker part while I was going to read my email, I may not have known about the dock until someone perhaps mentioned it to me.  


Dock from Misawa Japan after 5500 mile Journey
The Coast Guard
Agate Beach
So, I decided to take a day trip to the coast and see what kind of photographs I could get, and document a little piece of history for myself. I knew I should have waited to go until the following day. The weather promised to be a tad nicer, but I was excited to get there.  Who know's how long it would be there. The tides brought it to us, they had the power to take her away again.

She landed on Agate Beach. I kept my eyes open for the Agates, but was a bit difficult as the wind was blowing my hair into my face, I had my snood on, pulled up over my nose, blocking the infamous coastal winds, the warmth trapped inside my snood which in turn was escaping out the top of the snood, fogged up my sunglasses! :O)  good times for me :O)  I remembered the pony tail holder I grabbed just before leaving my house and whipped my hair up into a tail. Yet still, there were no agates to be found.

There were tons of tracks in the sand, it's funny how I only noticed the tracks leading to the dock. The motto "build it and they will come" came to my mind as I, my friend Janet and many people, with their dogs in tow and some in the lead made their way across the hills of sand to the "dock from Japan". There were women in dresses with clenched fists holding onto their skirts in order to preserve their modesty with the wind wanting to make sails out of them, there were children, well, being children in sand, there were boots and sandals and there were feet.

By the time I got to the dock, I was amazed to find it was solid! solid concrete! I have been trying to figure out, how this massive, 66 x 7 x 19' beast was able to float at all!  There she sat, pointed towards land and sea for us to wonder.

By the time I had arrived, the scientists had rid her burden of sea life. 

How, over a years time had she gone unnoticed? how many islands had she seen? how many birds have landed on her? so many questions. Most important and maybe what we have forgotten, are the people from whence she first came and the reason behind it.

Will the scientists leave her be? If she decides to continue her journey, will they try to stop her? Is it their right?
I captured as much as mother nature would allow and headed back the half mile to my car, and this is when I noticed the tracks, leading back to a life more certain. Remnants, now, our past.