Random Ships 29

Rhine is currently in port offloading salt given the reported shortage of the material.

Lines were made fast Monday midday, just after Balder had left.

In the past six days, Balder had come and discharged its dozens of thousands of tons of the stuff and gone.  As Corey Kilgannon reports in the first sentence of his recent NYTimes article, “Pass the salt, please” describes the business plan here.

This is what international trade looks like, whether it be Islandia heading out under a leaden-gray afternoon or

these unidentified vessels departing recently at dawn.  In the photo above, the dry-docked vessel in the background is USNS Pomeroy, T-AKR 316.

The first three photos are used with permission of Brian DeForest.  The others are by Will Van Dorp. And obviously, none of these photos were taken today, as another type of white stuff descends upon the harbor.