The Spirit of Sacramento

Greetings!

I had some time to spare today so I figured I would share with you one of my first published photos from 2017, a bit of the story behind the photo, and a brief history of the vessel within the photo.

The watercraft was named "The Spirit of Sacramento" and I took it the evening of January 11th 2017 at 6:50pm near Sacramento, CA, on our delta. I used a Nikon D810 with a Nikon 24-70mm at f13 exposed for 25 seconds.

Spirit of Sacramento

This particular photo was especially impressive to me because of how high the water was on this particular day and trust me when I say, the water level was very high. So high in fact, she was actually dry docked, as in sitting on dry land, just a few days prior. I was amazed to see this old paddle-wheel not only could float still but that it was safely intact after the flooding.

I didn't expect much from this particular day given the overcast skies and had gone out there earlier that morning to more or less scout out the location and try a few different photos at different angles. Despite being rainy and overcast, I wasn't let down and the vessel remained impressive, even in the morning light.

With the flood waters being so high, most of the homes on the Delta were either washed out or flooded and sadly, the marina which owns (or at least offers safe harborage) did not appear to fair as well and looks to have been nearly destroyed in the flooding.

While the flooding was mostly contained to the low lying areas, there were a few areas in the city which were impassable. These areas are controlled flooding regions but it nevertheless forced another problem to the surface which I will save for another post.

The craft in the photo was actually quite famous at one point in time, having been owned by John Wayne and featured in the movie Blood Alley. It was crafted in 1942, originally named "The Putah", and served as a "snagboat" for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. If you're interested in learning more about it, please feel free to read this post from "Rick".

This old boat had sat there for a few years after being ordered drydocked by the city due to fears that it would break loose and wreak havoc on the other watercraft in the downtown harbor. I suppose this was a pretty successful test of whether or not she would break loose and despite the river's best efforts, it maintained its ground and remained floating throughout the duration of the winter.

Well, that's all I have for now, thanks for reading!

Previous Posts:

• My Introduction Post