A closer look
Navigating the Graveyard of the Pacific requires a specialized local captain, but actually getting that captain onto the giant cargo ship is an extreme sport. At the Columbia River Bar, the waves are often too violently unpredictable for a traditional pilot boat to pull alongside a freighter so the pilot can climb a terrifyingly flimsy rope ladder. Instead, they use helicopters. The marine pilot is winched down from a hovering chopper directly onto the pitching deck of the moving container ship in the middle of a screaming gale. It's an action-movie stunt executed casually every single week just to get flat-screen TVs into Oregon.
