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How did this cat gain its rotundity?
What creatures besides cats occupy waterfronts round the world?
Recognize this ovoid?
And when this vessel leaves port . . .
and heads for sea,
the cats are satisfied. Save a gato . . . .
Here‘s an article on the felines. Click here for info on “save a gato.” Scroll through to see a foto of the creature on the stern of the Disney ship. All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Here’s the entrance to San Juan Bay . . . Freja Taurus passing the #2 red under rain driven by 15+ knot wind out of the north.
OK . . . Elizabeth snapped this foto . . . that’s my “focused” look as I huddle–like the ghost of a century-ago Spanish soldier– out of the rain behind the bottom level of El Morro.
Here’s the aforepromised foto of Beth M. McAllister (ex-YTB-805), three years and two months younger than the sixth boro’s own Ellen McAllister. Both Beth and Ellen were built in Wisconsin.
Don Raul came out of an Ohio shipyard exactly five years ago . . . now operating for Borinken Towing and Salvage . . .
drifting in and
towing a fuel barge.
Getting back to the first two fotos, once inside, Handy Three takes Freja Taurus‘ bow.
OK . . . another view of Beth at the dock.
PRT’s Triton (ex-AT-77) is a 72-year-old Texas-built workhorse, just recently involved in the rescue of ex-Smit Rotterdam . . . foto later in this post.
And here’s my quite-poor foto of ex-Smit Rotterdam. . . . now called Global Destiny. Here’s more story on the rescue that brought Global Destiny into San Juan harbor. She’s since headed south and east, but I really wish I’d caught this monster headed out the mouth of the Bay past El Morro.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Unrelated . . . here’s a foto of a Smit tug in the sixth boro of NYC a few decades back with a quite famous tow called Peking.
OK . . I stole am borrowing the title from what I’d call a “must-read” book by John McPhee . . . from two decades back. But this small boat, identified
here–double click–is
doing just that, no matter the stormy weather.
See the pilot boat here . . . approaching the incoming container ship, which is looking for a port.
The pilot boat descends into a trough starboard the vessel, SS El Morro. . . . Sun Shipbuilding launched . . . 1974. See hull # 666. Here it approaches its namesake. . . .
where–standing off a sentry box–aka–una garita waits Honcho, a 1975 tug, also looking for a ship, along with
its newest fleetmate, Handy Three. By the way, does anyone have a foto of Handy Three passing through New York City . . . the sixth boro . . . late last spring on its maiden voyage between Cleveland and San Juan?
If so, please get in touch . . see email along upper left.
All fotos yesterday by Will Van Dorp, in the last half hour before catching a ride back to NYC . . . aka the sixth boro.
. . . although bridge shipping might be more accurate. Mostly pics for now, as I’ve no time for research other than eyes. As night falls and with aerial pelican support . . . Norma H II.
. . . and waterborne pelicans.
Dawn with Midnight Wolf.
At the entrance of San Juan harbor . . notice the tiny fishing boat beyond Wolf.
Even earlier at dawn . . Sabre Spirit.
At dusk . . . Midnight Stone. . .
and Commander.
And finally . . . a mother ship, and not-so-short sea shipping . . . it’s Navigator towing San Juan – Jax Bridge . . . as night fell last night.
The tow gets an assist from Beth McAllister. More Beth soon.
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A few weeks ago I saw a burst container coming into the KVK. Repair it? Maybe . . .
Otherwise . . . repurpose it. Or just keep one that brings a shipment. Office needed? I got it.
Put some fronds here and there. Throw on some netting . . .
and you could be in business . . . literally.
Here’s a bar conversion . . . with shade.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp . . . on Vieques.
Quick post from San Juan after the better part of a good week in Vieques, where I first went two years ago. Involved were ferries,
scooters,
horses,
and lots of boats . . . notable being schooner Virginia, last seen on tugster here in mid-October last year. . . foto 8.
back in October. At first I thought it was Amistad, but Amistad has more headrig.
Vieques has an appeal that tries to just hold me here, and
if my return trip was aboard Arawak,
I might just stay here. I had a job offer already the second day I was here!!
More soon.
Name that river where the hunters are putting in their boat on a ramp that’s showing some roughness? If the guy taking fotos turns around, you’ll see
this arch by Saarinen. So it’s a low water Mississippi, making the levees seem even higher than the posted 38′ to the street. By the way, I hadn’t expected to be so impressed as I was by the arch and the underground museum.
This January along this part of the Mississippi had below freezing temperatures, not the weather to run show boats by these delightful names. To ride either Becky Thatcher or Tom Sawyer, we’ll have to return in summer. A few days ago in New Orleans, it was 77.
And that’s fine. Summer would be a better time to go slowly through the Illinois River Valley, and enjoy sights like the 170′ pushboat America. A few miles upriver–we didn’t get there–is also the former showboat Goldenrod, which I need to return to the area to see.
I hope to have more pics of America soon.
Another ferry–Golden Eagle Ferry–rests on the bank not far from to the south. Click here for more ferries of the Middle Mississippi River valley.
Right in the middle of Kampsville is the “108 bridge,” sort of like the US Route 10 Bridge between Michigan and Wisconsin. But I digress.
Actually this is Miss Illinois, a 1998 Chattanooga-built tug connected by rotating kingpin to a barge ferry
The barge stays pointed the same direction all the time, but Miss Illinois pivots on the pin each time it shuttles to the other bank.
And the water is icy!
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
A quick reprise first: back in Nola, here Connie 2 assists B. John Yeager dock a tow along Algiers. Route 90 bridge in the background.
Here’s the mystery vessel from the last post: the retired MV Mississippi IV in Vicksburg, positioned here in 2007 when an even larger replacement came on line.
In Memphis, it’s Richard headed southbound under the I-55 bridge.
From Fort Defiance Park in Cairo, Il, that’s the Route 60 bridge over the Ohio . . . at the very end of the Ohio. The confluence is behind me. Tug is ADM’s American Pillar. Note the barges and tugs along the far bank.
Less than a quarter mile away, along the Mississippi bank, it’s AEP’s Michael G. Morris. The bridge is the Mississippi crossing of Route 60.
And in between the two previous fotos, here’s the commingling. Notice the Ohio on the left is muddier than the Mississippi on the right. Coming thru is Okie Moore’s Diving and Salvage’s Stephen Foster, pusing crane barges and Captain Val, based along the Missouri.
And finally for now, it’s Gateway Express as seen from the top of the St Louis Arch and
from the St Louis bank.
Many more to come from points in between . . . from Will Van Dorp.
Quick and succinct: the way to enter Nola from the east and north is Rte 90. About 30 miles east of Nola I passed this mystery vessel Poseidon, which looked like a house-forward bulk carrier with a quonset hut over the hold now blown away by a storm. Anyone know the history?
As sun rose somewhere in a cloudy drizzly day, the first vessel to pass–upbound–was BBC Brazil.
Then a steady stream of traffic moved on the great river . . . some of them included Amalienborg,
B. John Yeager (?) with at least 13 barges, which round Algiers Point in the most
curious way, which involved backing down, sliding over to the Nola side, and what must have been lots of nail-biting.
Big Sam and a small tow.
From the Algiers side, I checked out Barbara E. Bouchard‘s new pins.
Also on the drydocks at Bollinger’s was Mully and Admiral Jackson.
Alice‘s sister Caroline Oldendorff passed . . . upriver.
And Alley Cat headed downstream herding more barges than would seem possible.
Nola is so much more than all that, and Checkpoint Charlie is a start of that other so-long list, but do check in at Charlie’s when next you’re here.
More soon. All foto by Will Van Dorp.
Foto from Birk. I never noticed before how much the colors of a McAllister tug and Santa Claus are alike. Now all Alex needs is to sport white fabric bow pudding, you to squint, and . . . et voila! To the right . . . I think that’s she who did a last waltz this past July.
Christmas decorations on USS New Jersey? Except this foto was taken in October.
Tugboat Lizzie with reflections . . . and made by a frustrated retired jeweler friend of John Ericsson.
a gold- and silver-plated copper tug! Trophy material. See more at the Independence Seaport Museum, not where the road has taken me but well worth a visit.
Top foto by Birk Thomas. All others by Will Van Dorp, who’s quite inland and equidistant from the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico.
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