Here was the first post in this series.  Some months back I wondered what this vessel was;  only by the time it had sailed a thousand miles southward did I realize it was a dredger, B. E. Lindholm.  If only I had gone around the barge here at the east end of Caddell’s . . .  .   But I was in a hurry that morning.   Kenny Wilder took these fantastic dredge fotos for which I am grateful.  All my hopper dredger fotos are too far away to demystify the bottom vacuuming business.   More Lindholm fotos can be found here.

Great Lakes Dredge & Dock has a hopper dredger in the harbor right now, but my shots are

always too far off.  This trailing suction hopper dredger is called Padre Island.

Here’s a GLDD clamshell submerged and probing the topography of the bottom of the bay,

emerging,

and re-submerged.

Here’s a hydraulic excavator.  The equipment is mammoth.

Deeper, deeper, the task seems herculean and somewhat futile at the same time, except it’s not.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

To see how the huge dredger Leiv Eiriksson is put together, click here.

Dredging . . . besides being essential work of the harbor, it reminds me of how my consciousness works:  each morning, whatever the hour, when I wake up, my perception is affected by whatever topography of my memory is then exposed.  It may be peaks or valleys or even human-created highs and lows.  Stuff resolved or not but accepted last week or last year needs to be dealt with again and again.  Not that I’m a slow learner, just new perspective brings new doubts, refreshed hopes.  Unsettling, pun intended.  I suppose this makes a post about dredging an apt end-of/beginning-of  year post.

Related to dredging is dealing with the nagging stuff that comes up in many of our consciousnesses as relates to getting along with people.  A type of post I’m thinking to add is an advice column.  Being on Georgia backroads now with only a quite blank laptop,  I have no sixth boro fotos to illustrate, but here’s a an example, which–@!%&*#@–sounds so much like Shakespeare that I’ll just modify this synopsis of Midsummer Night’s Dream. . . except this writing happens to be  midwinter.

Sample advice seeker whom I’ll call “December dredgerist”  —-

Dear Tugster, My crewmate Mori (married to a lubber Elfin Princess . . . aka EP) feels profoundly attracted to Tori (a lubber), and Tori feels deeply attracted to  Luis. EP loves Mori but also–being elfin–has strong attractions and liaisons with a plethora of  fairies, sprites, nymphs, mermaids, and sirens, and other magical creatures of the forests, islands, tidepools, hills… all of which is fine with Mori, who understands elfins and their openness about Mori and Tori.  There is neither pressure to change anything nor complications that exist, but (I’m writing for Mori) Mori wants to know if you could dig into your experience to help Mori either attract Tori or deal with her lack of attractedness to him without turning into an ass.  Many thanks… December dredgerist.

Henry Fuseli Titania and Bottom circa 1790
My response:  Dear Decemberist:  Tell Mori that change is the only constant, and since I have no control over the elves, sprites, and other magical creatures that make  stuff happen in your/my lives, just  . . . do what you’re doing–be sweet or salty or neutral according to your custom and … ride out the hurricanes, calms, ebbs, surges.  May your anchor hold tight in spring tides as in lows.  Dress warmly, and always wear a life jacket.

Lame, maybe?  Any  advice for either the advice giver or the advice seeker?  Much appreciated, and  Auspicious 2010!  Enjoy the midwinter’s full moon.  I’m starting to make my way down the Savannah watershed.

PS:  If your advice to me is to call off this column and terminate the personals-dredging, I’ll consider it.

Unrelated:  check out the mini-tug on Gypsy pirate wench! Fair winds to her as she joins Amistad!