This is a series of pictures of the Port Angeles pilot boat picking up the pilot. It is the new Jet boat there quite proud of the thing and yes it is very fast. This is the last human physical contact a ship will have with the shore. It is also (get this) the first contact too. For all you people who don’t know a ship will hire a pilot for a port that the crew is unfamiliar with. He/she is strictly hired for their local knowledge of (this might sound a little weird to you) where the rocks are NOT. They also get paid a lot of money for the job too. (Yes more then the captain)

Pilots have been around for thousands of years. In the more resent times they have become required buy law to have on large ships. So in the case where the ship has been in and out of a port quite a few times it turns into a case where the ships crew will start to know more then the pilots. The next thing you know captains and companies will start asking questions like “Why do we pay you so much money when we tell you what is going on?”

Pilots (except in Panama) never take the responsibility away from the Captain of the ship. So when the oil spills, collisions, sinking, and sea monsters happen. The pilot can walk away with a minimal amount of responsibly.

It use to be In China a couple thousand years ago that if a pilot ran a ship aground he would have his head cut off.

Maybe the Chinese have got something going here……..