Where I’m steering  here most corresponds to the second post in this series, Coexistence 2.  On an ideal day, all traffic gets along, sorts itself out.  Big steel and small steel keep clear of one another, again

and again, no matter what the direction or

cargo or time of hitch or

commercial alliance or lack thereof, or

speed for whatever the purpose . . . understandings get articulated, negotiated, and agreed upon.

But then without warning and from out of nowhere, the wild jumps

in.  The beast, driven by terror of the predator and the mindless urge to mate, dives in

as members of its species have for millenia.  Some have always made it, wild and unfettered.  But now the environment has

changed;  rules and conditions altered.   And intervention happens or

doesn’t.

Many thanks to Bill Bensen for the three fotos of the deer.  For the record, Bill took these fotos about three weeks ago although it may be the same buck that jumped in this week.  For more of Bill’s fotos of animals of the harbor, click here.

Other fotos by Will Van Dorp.  Info on the vessels in the fotos:  Foto 1: Bro Albert is a Maersk product tanker with an unidentified McAllister tug in the distance.  Foto 2:  Marie J. Turecamo and Kimberly Turecamo pirouette parcel tanker Stolt Vanguard out to sea.  Foto 3:  from near to far, Taft Beach, Captain D, and ATB Pati R. Moran moves the barge Charleston with assist from an unidentified Moran tug.  Foto 4:  near to far is Davis Sea and Java Sea.

Related:  I included the tug Dolphin above as an attempt to broaden the term, given  Bowsprite’s recent treat (treatise?) on inanimate harbor “animal” life.