Last month, the New Carissa met the Karlissas. Last week, the remains of the wood chip ship met the Parrots.

The Parrots, Don, and Margot, were in town to see Titan Salvage’s latest project, its work removing the New Carissa, which has been rusting in the pounding surf off the North Spit since 1999. The couple traveled cross-country, from just south of Portland, Maine, to the Bay Area, to visit their son and get a look at the shipwreck. Their son, David Parrot, is Titan’s managing director.

Standing next to his elderly parents, David looks like Titan’s gigantic salvage barge Karlissa B: tall, strong, sturdy.

The trip was a first for Don, 90, and Margot, 87. Until now, they haven’t seen one of their son’s projects.

“We’ve always seen pictures and heard descriptions,” Margot said. “We thought it was time to actually see one.”

The day they went out to the wreck certainly was not picture-perfect. It was as if Mother Nature was trying to make up for all the pleasant-weather days Titan has had.

They braved one of the windiest days on the coast. Wind howled. Both buttoned up their flannel shirts — hers a red and black plaid, his a yellow and black check — and their windbreakers, before donning bright orange life jackets. They put on knit caps and bright yellow hard hats. They made their way up to the cable car tower, the wind at their backs.

Don paused. He looked at the cables, blocks, winches and tower. He turned, looked at the ship, looked down the long stretch of beach, then up the beach. Nothing for miles. Nothing but wind.

And the rumble of the crane engines and clang of metal against metal could be heard in the distance as workers dismantled the ship.

“Boy, this is bleak,” he said, his voice carried away by a gust.

“Neat?” someone asked.

“No, BLEAK,” he said.

Their impression of the wreck and Titan’s setup to tear it down was a little more enthusiastic.

“It certainly is spectacular,” Margot said.

Don said it must have taken an incredible amount of ingenuity on the part of Titan — and his son —  to make the removal plan work.

The praise Don poured on David when he was not in earshot didn’t prevent the ever-watchful father from questioning his son, who has worked on some of the biggest salvage projects around the world.

“Who wrote this?” Don asked as he read over the visitor’s safety rules.

Then, outside, “How is that anchored?” he asked, looking at the cable car tower in the dunes.

Questions aside, David seemed nearly giddy to take his folks out to the site.

“It was great for me,” David said. “It was good for our guys to briefly meet them and vice-versa.”

Back in the comfort and shelter of David’s rented pickup truck, Don had only one word for the cable car ride — “Chilly.”

Margot was a bit more descriptive.

“It was about what I expected, so I kept my eyes shut,” she said.

On a pleasant day, the cable car will sway as people board and move around on it. In heavy wind conditions, the movement is only multiplied.

Don and Margot may have been leery of the cable car ride, but it was obvious they have spent their lives near the sea. Margot remarked during the bumpy, wild sand ride across the North Spit that she’d hoped to see the New Carissa and barges when they flew in on Horizon Air — but they didn’t.

“We were on the port side,” she said.

Most travelers would say the “left” side of the plane, but not Margot — she uses nautical terms as if they’re a comfy sweater she’s worn for years.

Don designed sailing yachts for most of his life in Maine. David was a yacht broker before going into salvage. He sold tug boats for conversion into yachts, but had always loved tugs for their original purpose. In 1981, he and a partner bought one and that was the beginning of Titan.

The New Carissa project, perhaps the last David in which will have a significant part since he’d going to retire soon, made for quite the introduction for his parents.

Both Don and Margot held on tight to the door handles as David gained speed on the sand road and drove up, up, up, over the dune, past a driftwood log and down onto the beach.

“I thought it was bigger,” Margot said, looking at the ship.

Her remark was similar to other visitors’ comments upon seeing the Karlissa A & B barges next to the Carissa. Alone, it looked like a huge monolith in the surf. Surrounded by barges bigger than it, the Carissa shrinks in stature.

Later, though Margot remarked that photos of the removal site didn’t really compare to with what see saw.

“To see it in its size was a surprise,” she said. “The pictures seemed to make it look smaller.”