Pilots 6

Know what’s different about the foto below?  Want to estimate the vintage of the vessel marked PILOT?

Lots of things maybe, but before I answer that question from my POV here, let me recap.  This is my 2191 post in this blog, and usually I don’t count.  I just add fotos and text–usually with coffee each morning–because it’s fun for me and many of you express appreciation.  But sometimes I do look back, as I did this morning.  In these 2190 previous posts, I have included pilots from the following ports/waterways in no particular order:  Cape Town, Rotterdam,  Panama Canal, Rio de Janeiro, San Juan PR, Miami, Key West, Newport RI, Belfast ME, Astoria OR, Port Huron MI, Lewes DE, C & D Canal, greater Jacksonville FL, Hudson River, Savannah, Charleston, Morehead City, Norfolk, and lots around greater NYC/sixth boro/my home for now.  And this leaves a lot more to find.

What’s different about this post is that it shows the pilot from the POV of the vessel being assisted.  What I enjoy about investing desk hours continuing to post when I could be out–??, dancing, flying a kite, studying Portuguese, ……–is that I find out interesting stuff.  Like . . . what do you know about this waterway?

Well, the Sabine-Neches Waterway might not be my first choice for the next place I’d like to plunge into for a swim, but it’s “top-tier” from a economic/strategic POV.

Click here to enjoy more fotos from the SNW.    Here’s some info from the Sabine pilots.

Many thanks for these fotos from a mariner who asks to remain uncredited.

Sabine Pilot is 29 years in service, off the ways at Breaux’s Bay Craft in 1984.

PS:  Please get in touch if you’d like to share fotos of pilot boats serving more ports/waterways.

Unrelated:  Here from 2012 are more fotos of KRI Dewaruci--reported as demasted off Australia recently—in the sixth boro.   Here is a sketch of the replacement vessel, on the drawing boards long before this incident.