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These data represent marine waters used by cruise ships, which includes transit, mooring or anchoring for extended overnight recreational travel on commercial ships. Excludes motorized boating and commercial shipping.
Cruise ships are not a common use in this area and the activity is mainly for transit purpose. Approximately 20-30 ships per year come into Astoria and transit up or down the coast. Some stop in Grays Harbor, but most transit offshore north to Victoria. Cruise ships are observed most commonly in spring and fall and tend to stay at least 20 miles offshore and follow designated shipping lanes except when coming into port where they follow the traffic separation scheme. Some ships pass through the Strait of Juan de Fuca each year headed north to Alaska. They avoid passage through the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary and the nearby Area To Be Avoided (ATBA). This use includes the ferry transit that runs five times daily between Port Angeles and Victoria across the Strait.
Tribal uses of the ocean were not mapped explicitly, though tribal chairs and/or their designated representatives were formally invited by BOEM to participate in the mapping workshops. The sharing of tribal use information was dependent upon each tribe’s determination of whether the mapping workshops were an appropriate forum for sharing such information. Any tribal use information shared during the workshops was incorporated into the defined use categories. Thus, the atlas data and map products do not explicitly depict tribal use. |