Road Fotos 19

Sometimes along the road, I see things I don’t understand.    The first two fotos here, though, I can identify but just won’t right now.  Hazard guesses about this fish?

 . . . and the current usage of this vessel?  Answers soon.

This is a poor foto shot from the roadway where I couldn’t stop, but it looks like fishing weir tenders removing trapped fish?  Click to enlarge.

Here, from a place I could stop is a weir with nets visible.   I call them weirs, but maybe other terms are used along the mid-Atlantic coast

Here was my northbound conveyance . . . ferry Twin Capes, which I saw in the sixth boro here (fotos 4 and 5) two years ago.    Nah . . . it wasn’t lost or in fugitive mode;  it was headed for Caddell Dry Dock.

Now . . . I kid you not, but let me say I saw a ray in Delaware Bay (sounds like the beginning of a song?) but didn’t even try to take a foto.  Maybe that’s a ray’s mouth motif on the bow of that pilot boat, which just

retrieved the pilot from Fivelborg, Quebec-bound.  You need to see this foto of her on shipspotting!!

Following Fivelborg was this container ship, and I have no idea who she is.   Any ideas . . . 10 to 15 miles behind Fivelborg outbound Delaware Bay?

Here’s the Cape May Light with the wreckage of SS Atlantus off Sunset Beach.

If this is a second life for this vessel parked on the shellrock surfaced marina, what was first life?

Two roads diverged in the New Jersey bayou (and I don’t mean that pejoratively) , and my GPS had no idea where I was or where I should go, and squadrons of tabanus nigrovittatuses aka greenheads knew exactly where their blood food was.   Squadrons of squadrons!!

But I braved them to sneak a quick look at 1927 FV Louise Ockers!

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.  More on the two unanswered Qs at the beginning soon.

Meanwhile . . . 8000 Miles Away

Alwyn Vintcent has moved over the mountains from Cape Town.  Credit here goes to Villiersdorp blog, where you can find many many more fotos.  Credit also goes to some amazing farmers with a dream and then grit to make it real.  I’m just putting up three fotos of the arrival, because they move me.

Here’s a post I did six weeks ago about Alwyn Vintcent.

Again, thanks to Villiersdorp Events for these fotos.

Road Fotos 18

Ironically, Road Fotos 17 were taken where this post ends up.  And I had planned NOT to post today, but . . .  time affords posting, and posting makes a drive more like a gallivant.  Given that I drove to Hampton Roads, it’s interesting to reflect on what scenes are absent from this post.  Three hours after locking my house door, I was on New Jersey at the southern tip on NJ, looking

across Delaware Bay, where I narrowly missed a close up

with a Kirbyfied . . .  can you guess? . . . .

Greenland Sea.   Lots of other vessels anchored just outside the channel, here looking roughly toward the northwest.

Entering Lewes, we met a dozen or so dolphins . . . who all managed to evade

my camera, which seems to be more skilled with stationary objects like this pilot boat.

I’m guessing a fish boat, although I’ve not seen this configuration before.   It reminds me of an updated version of a menhaden boat?

The Cape Charles light is a skeleton a quarter mile inland.

The lights at Fort Story in the background, and Trabzon and Red Iris anchored outside Hapmton Roads.

This might be USS Samuel Eliot Morison foreground and USCGC Legare farther away.  And then again, the nearer vessel might be something else.

And finally, any guesses what Atlantic Dawn is towing into the mouth the the Chesapeake?

Cutterhead dredge Illinois!!  If Illinois makes it all the way to the sixth boro, you know who will have more opportunities to perfect her rendition of the toothy snouted machine.

And the reason for this gallivant–other than gallivanting for its own sake– will be clearer tomorrow.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp today.

@#$#!! . . . as I write this, USAV Winfield Scott is passing the precise location Atlantic Dawn was 90 minutes ago.  To see USAV Winfield Scott, check Jed’s most recent post here.

Other People’s Fotos 18

First . . . a foto from Cape Town thanks to Colin.  Any idea what purpose the wire coils around the bulwarks of Teliri serve?  Answer at end of post.

Next, from French mariner Herrou Xtian, a LeHavre-based rotor tug RT Claire, now working in Bremerhaven.  For a sense of what she looks like below the waterline, click here.

Also from Xtian, it’s a huge salvage tug Abeille Bourbon.  Xtian’s has a model-building question later in this post.  And I hope to have fotos of a huge tug myself in the next few days.

And from Dave Chappell, Mobro’s Rio Bravo (ex-Gus Candies, 1973)  towing a scow through Jacksonville, FL.

Also from Dave, two old tugs (anyone identify??) travel under the Ben Franklin swing bridge near Charleston, SC.

Teliri has been laying cable in pirate/gangster? infested waters, so it could be construed the coils of barbed wire intends to discourage unwelcomed visits.

And here’s Xtian’s question, stemming from his work on Crowley’s former vessel Centurion.  On his model, the lighter strips represent the keel coolers.  How far do the ones marked A and B extend, and what exactly do they look like.

Here are fotos I took of Centurion high and dry on Mighty Servant 1, about to leave NYC’s sixth boro for Nigeria.  However, the portion Xtian wants to see is obscured in all my fotos.  Anyone help?

Final shot, also from Colin . ..  who’s following the progress of Alwyn Vintcent inland from Cape town on a 90-wheel rig operated by ALE.  Here’s a previous ship-haul job by ALE.

I won’t post tomorrow or friday most likely . .  because I’ll be gallivanting “on assignment.”

Thanks much Colin, Xtian, and Dave.

 

High and Dry 8

Here was 7.

Below . . . that’s Weddell Sea, last here (second foto from last) in green.  Seeing a vessel like this is not unlike “doctor’s office” nekkid . . . so much more is revealed, and I don’t mean just physical.

To see many more fotos of her afloat, click here.

Amy Moran–telescoped-up-house– was here literally half a year ago.

And four years older and upstate New York-built . . . here’s James Turecamo.

Finally . . . about to be high and dry, here was Barbara McAllister just driving into Dry Dock #1 in the Brooklyn Navy Yard last week.  Click here for a short lecture on Dry dock #1 by a Yale architecture professor.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who hopes to get some great high and dry later this week.

Star 2

OOps!  I used “star”  title already back five years back.

Some of you can read the name of the black mystery vessel;  the one off its stern appeared in this blog at least as early as August 2007.  Today’s McAllister Responder was one of triplets delivered in 1967 to Esso Shipping.  See her here in Exxon colors; actually as you scroll through, be aware that the sixth foto down is filched from this blog . . . Auke!!?@#.

Assisting in this job is another of the triplets, Charles D. McAllister.  Here are Auke Visser “compiled” fotos of her way back.  Any guesses yet what the mystery ship is?

A clue is that the larger vessel is black like bitumen

because that’s what it transports.

Yesterday she was sashayed away from the dock for

the anchorage a lot

lighter, I suppose, than when she arrived.  I guess that makes

her an  . . . emerging star?  Summer is “road work season” here, so I’m guessing that’s the ultimate use for her trade.

A rising Asphalt Star, at least until it takes on its

next cargo.  Excuse this one, but if I watch her on AIS, does that make her

a star of the little screen?    The real stars here are the crews, as today is the Day of the Seafarer.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Solstice Post 3

This is the work and play post . . . the real connection is that although we all have to work, an important secret is to enjoy what you do.    Imagine this enthusiasm in a  co-worker or yourself on Monday morning, whether you’re struggling to finish a group report or

like the Villiersdorp farmers and ALE and their associates moving Alwyn Vintcent on 80 functioning wheels–at least– around Table Mountain.

If you don’t enjoy it . ..  or relish the challenge and execution,

you won’t even start the job.

This is the only way to get through obstacles that stop your progress . . .   Revel in the task  . . . like

the folks at NYS Marine Highway, now shipping corn–yes–corn–out of Ontario and into the Erie Canal.    How long has it been that agricultural commodities have been shipped on the Erie Canal . . . how long have people talked about shipping same on that waterway that revolutionized NYC . . .  or international shipping entering the Erie Canal, but Margot (over a half century young) and its crew

is actually-as we speak–

doing it!  Bravo to the folks at NYS Marine Highway.   Click here for lots more fotos of Margot.

Sun dancing is great, but the spirit that drives the dancers also animates folks

who dance with ships and lines and

get one task done safely and then move to the next and the next.

So whatever you do, whatever I do . . .

I know that if I can do it in a way that gets me satifaction and pleasure,

the better.

South African fotos come compliments of Colin Syndercombe;  the Oswego/Erie Canal fotos,   . . . Allan and Sally of  Sally W,   and all the others by Will Van Dorp.

Related:  Here’s another ALE job.

Unrelated:  The longest marathon swim starts tomorrow morning over 100 miles up the Hudson.

Solstice Post 2

The other side of the boro . . . the strand on Coney Island, sees a visitation of finnyfolk, who briefly leave the water for this sun festival.  Enjoy this field guide to western North Atlantic merpeople.  These came  in a replica of Nefertiti’s royal barge.

These seemed influenced by both 1960s popular music and bowsprite’s logo, and

these . . .  by abandoned rowboats . . .  .

Bubbles emanate . . . maybe from lungs not yet fully functioning.

The appearance of merpopulations triggers camerafolk, some of whom work alone with archaic gear, and

others that swarm, especially as mermaids apply their version of  . . .  cosmetics?

Lest anyone appear a threat, they bring in formidable security.

But otherwise, they just love to dance the

sun dance to their

own musicians who work with strings and wind and

percussion.

Some have ideas about politics and

activism;  others

gloom-and-doom-ify.

Some mermaids, residing underwater as do hulls of boats, like boats need a haircut and a shave.

Some experience low-oxygen shock in the Coney summer air, as

they dance and

dance and take a break only for

recording it all for posterity.

And posterity surely should remember the color

and line.

Happy sun dance day.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Solstice Post 1

First . . . around the boro, the light is beauteous enough to suspend a sense of time and obligation and stress and disappointment.  This side of the boro, though on duty, works the milder solstice.

Lynx (1967, ex-Catherine Foss, Kainani) probably working with a dredging project, I’ve never seen here before.

Discovery Coast glows.

Nicole Leigh waits orders, as crew might ponder

a different season, as seen here.

In this heat and light, Kimberly looks positively artdeco:  her aqua would blend in on South Beach and way beyond.

Brandywine wrestles the season as she dances her partner DoubleSkin 141.

Quenames broods as she gazes into the stream.

Miriam Moran cruises past Sailors’ Snug Harbor, as purposefully as always.

Jane A. Bouchard races deep into right field, showing what waters can be divided by more than 6000 hp on the wheels, while her older sister

Barbara E. Bouchard dozes briefly in the shadows before moving upriver, where

the venerable Patty Nolan dons her midsummer’s bikini, freshens up her dancing paint . . . the mayor’s drum is soon to call to disorder the 2012 parade . . .  the sixth boro’s shoreline version of Mardi Gras.

OK . . . one final glance for now at Lynx off to the dredge site.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who is solely responsible for any erroneous interpretations of event, signs, and artless ceiling doodles.

Happy summer!!

Unrelated:  If you happen to “see things” when you pass the KVK salt pile on Saturday night, you’re not hallucinating.  Lumen will happen.

For an auspicious virtual gallivant as they sally forth through the Rideau Canal from Lake Ontario to Ottawa and beyond, follow Sally W . . .

Polar Adventure

They say we never had a winter in 2011 into 2012, but on this first full day of summer, a hot season has begun.  What better day to look at Cook Inlet.  I’m using these fotos with expressed permission from Seth Tane, who took them four years and a month ago;  see his painting here.

Seth’s platform here is Polar Adventure.  Click here and scroll to see her shuttle route between Alaska and the West Coast during the past 30 days alone.

And the “tailgating” tug is Tan’erliq, a Crowley ship assist and tanker escort, training.

Click here for a commendation Tan’erliq shared with an even more powerful Crowley tug for rapid response to a tanker power loss.

Line is made and pullback begins.  This process makes me think of calf roping or kayak hunting.

Just as I can imagine the sound of the tug’s engine pulling back with 105 tons of force, I can

look at this water and cool off,

I hope.  Click here and here for Crowley vessels previously on this blog.

Many thanks to Seth Tane for these cool fotos.

Unrelated:  Bravo to community Board 1 for passing a resolution supporting wood carver Sal Polisi’s right to stay put.  Shame on EDC for their broad-broom sweeping all that impedes their planning.