One of Alfred Tennyson’s best-known poems uses a bar crossing as a metaphor for the process of dying. Tennyson’s comparison in Crossing the Bar is fitting because transiting a bar between an ocean and a river or harbor can be one of the most intimidating experiences a boater faces. More than a few people, myself included, have seen the steep seas on a bar and wondered if this might be the end.
A bar is a shallow area of sand or mud, usually deposited near the mouth of a bay or river. When a fast-moving river slows down to meet the ocean, it deposits tons of silt and mud that it carries. This bar forms a natural barrier, typically extending across the river or bay entrance, often at roughly right angles to the river current and the prevailing ocean swell and wind.
The West Coast of the United States is dotted with notoriously dangerous bars, including what is widely considered one of the most perilous in the world: the infamous Columbia River Bar, nicknamed The Graveyard of the Pacific. There, an area of shallow water extends for several miles around the mouth of the river and forms dangerous sand spits on both the north and south sides of the channel. The seas along a bar often are much larger and
