A. V. Kastner

I wrote about this ship a little over a year ago (scroll about half way through).  This time, a cold day last week,  I recognized her immediately and

got closer ups.  A Saugerties lighthouse keeper recorded the same vessel passing some time back.

Only a cold winter shot catches the white smudges around its bow and hatches.  By the way, inside under the hatches lie tons of the white material from the Minas Basin of Nova Scotia that becomes sheetrock, plaster board.  Some blogger’s eyes monitor Kastner and other gypsum carriers well here.

Ice, of course, cold water sprays up and coats an even colder hull.  You may recall fotos of hatches encased in ice on Kastner‘s sister vessel Gypsum Baron,  posted here.

Here’s a closer up of Kastner‘s “unloader,” aka slewing boom.

Which brings me to uninvited thoughts of cold water, ice such as that broken up farther north along the Hudson, and people who see solidifying waters as places to test human endurance.  Warm-blooded Bowsprite writes about some of these swimmers, New York residents, here.  Rachel writes about it here.

On swimmers and blogs about the water:   get the Beatles,  a wild swimmer in Amsterdam, and something about a submarine here at the incomparable Peter Mello’s Sea Fever.

Photos, WVD.