May 30, 2012 . . . around 1000 hrs.  I’d forgotten taking this foto until a conversation with Harold Tartell this afternoon.  RIP . . .   Bounty in that foto was heading for Newburgh, NY.  Note the USCG vessel lower right.

Here are more fotos from my harbor jaunt yesterday…  Apollo Bulker now lies at the dock in Rensselaer.

John A. Noble passed the Statue on the Upper Bay at midday yesterday.

Lower  Manhattan yesterday was a maze of pumps powered by portable generators of all sizes.  I’m not sure where this water is being pumped from.   But waters in other parts of that area smelled of fuel;  people wearing masks–there’s a whole new meaning to Halloween mask now–ran pumps and threw out waterlogged debris from residences and businesses.

Google “John B. Caddell” now and you’ll see lots of stories describing this vessels as a “168′ water tanker” or a “700-ton water tanker.”  It’s NOT a water tanker.  It was built as hull # 137 for Chester A. Poling Inc.  to transport petroleum.  Soon after delivery, it was turned over to the Navy and redubbed YO-140.    After the war, ownership was returned to the Poling company, and until its sale “foreign”  about two years ago.  It’s NOT a water tanker . . . it did not transport water as a paying cargo.

It’s remarkable to see the number of government helicopters in the skies over New York–and the military trucks and personnel.  This afternoon I spoke with US Forest Service crew in my neighborhood–Queens–clearing roadways: the person I talked to, from Arkansas, had never been in NYC before.  He said he was working with USFS crews from Texas, Wisconsin, and Ohio.  Thanks, welcome to NYC, and come back sometime when we’re all feeling better.

And finally, attributed to the Daily News . . . LARCs come ashore on Belle Harbor, Queens to assist.   Click on the foto to get the Daily News story.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp, except that story and fantastic foto by Vera Chinese the NY Daily News.

After coming home last night, I finally finished reading Rockwell Kent‘s 1929 memoir N by E.    Rockwell Kent lived for a time on the curve at 1262 Richmond Terrace (Staten Island) just east of the Caddell Dry Dock.   N by E tells the story of his shipwreck on the western shore of Greenland near Godthaab and subsequent struggle to survive.    Here are some teaser excerpts.

“We lay, caught in the angle of a giant step of rock, keel on the tread and starboard side on the riser; held there by wind and sea; held there to lift and pound; to lift so buoyantly on every wave; to drop–crashing our 13 iron-shod tons on granite.  There, the perfection of our ship revealed itself; only, that having struck just once, she ever lived, a ship, to lift and strike again. …  wind, storm, snow, rain, hail, lightning and thunder, earthquake and flood.”  (page 132)    Some time later, the three crew save what supplies they can and scramble up the rocks to safety.  Kent again:  ”The three men stand there looking at it all  [including the wreckage of their vessel Direction]   … at last one of them speaks.  ’It’s right,’ he says, ‘that we should pay for beautiful things.  And being here in this spot, now, is worth traveling a thousand miles for, and all that it has cost us.  Maybe we have lived only to be here now.’”  (144)  And later   “It was clear to us that the boat would remain on the ledge and even be, at low tide, partly out of the water.  She appeared to have been completely gutted …  the forecastle hatch now stood uncovered and every sea came spouting through it like a geyser, bearing some quaint contribution to the picturesque assortment that littered the rocks and water.  Books, paper, painting canvas, shoes, socks, eggs, potatoes:  we fished up what we could.”  (148)

Somehow Kent found himself ennobled in that personal disaster.   There’s hope.  It’s also a good read.

Last foto here passed along by Justin Zizes Jr .  . partly submerged fishing boat in Sheepshead Bay.

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