In Culpa Sumus

It’s not just mea culpa.  I’ve done it, you have too, most likely.  “What?” you ask?  I’ll get to that.

Foreshortening does make for dramatic photos.  And that looks like a spare prop high up on the port side deck.

Watch out there, Madame Mallard . . .

What would Captain Ahab make of this profile?  Onyx Arrow was in port for less than a half day yesterday, arriving from Halifax and Europe before that.  Early afternoon I got these photos of her leaving town…

So this “we’re all at fault” title in Latin above?   We’ve all hit animals while driving:  birds, bats, other folks’ pets, turtles . . .  I’ve never hit a deer, but over a million are hit on US highways each year . . . .

Here’s what I’m getting at . . . see it on the bulbous bow?  Here’s more info on ship strikes . . .

It’s sad to see . . . like deer along the highway, but mitigation seems not so easy.  I know of a sailboat sailing with no engine running that hit one that may have been asleep on the surface . . .  middle of the night.

The last two photos come thanks to the always alert Tony A;  the others by Will Van Dorp.

 

More Cargoes 19 b

More than a week ago, these tanks entered the Erie Canal system at lock E-2 in Waterford.  Sunday afternoon they tied up for the night in Lyons below E-27.  Let’s call the first nine photos here Batch 1.

 

This morning early, they made their way through E-27 and then on to E-28A.

Here’s a view back toward E-27 and the village of Lyons . . . around the bend.

The forward most barge gets pushed in, unmade from the second barge, and then CMT Otter reverses out with that second barge.

The unaccompanied barge is moved out the upper gates by means of the capstan, a machine as old as the Barge Canal and very infrequently used.

After this barge is moved forward and secured to the wall, the gates close, the lock is drained, the lower gates opened, and the rest of the tow enters to be raised to the level of the forward barge.

These next photos taken west of Newark . . . E-28 B . . . show just how narrow this part of the Canal is, and

silt that’s lain on the bottom gets stirred up.

Here’s an article from the NYTimes, but I wish the author had spoken with a wider range of informants.

Many thanks to Bob Stopper (1,2, 6, 7) , Jason Ladue (8, 9) , and John Van Dorp (3, 4, 5) for these photos.

Now Batch 2, thanks to Bob Stopper.  Bob took this batch this morning very near my “upstate home,”  between Newark and Widewaters.  Note that this batch is moved by HR Pike.  

For a long tow, this part of the Canal  (same as here) is very narrow.

It’s mind-boggling that these inland waters are directly connected to the Pacific Ocean and China, but it’s the case.

The school bus here is crossing the Whitbeck Road Bridge, a span I’ve crossed probably a thousand times . . .

Many thanks to all, especially to Bob Stopper, who was unstoppable in getting these photos just this morning.

 

 

 

A Time to Remember 2

Here was the first in this series.

Recognize this ferry for decades since 1988 has been laid up, recently just west of the Bayonne Bridge . . . not the best photo but it’s Pvt. Nicholas Minue?  I can’t remember if it was still there last time I passed . . .

Know the story?

Pvt. Minue lies in Carthage, Tunisia, one of the cemeteries in 15 countries around the world.  Below, a Tunisian man, Abdullah Lagahre tends Minue’s marker; for more on this story and the source of this photo, click here.

Near and far, may their sacrifice be remembered and respected.

Here are some related links . . .  classified stars on a wall, the wall in Fort Huachuca, and what the VA spent on Confederate graves as of 2013.

Here’s a story of another Medal of Honor awardee whose remains lie overseas, this time in Asia.

 

Thanks to Jed 6

I’m off gallivanting around NYC and getting more Fleet Week photos, so I’m happy to put up some more of John Jedrlinic’s photos.

Let’s start with an unusual angle . . . it’s Smit Indusbank, built 1968 in the Netherlands.

photo date 22 APRIL 2016

Pelican II seems to have started life on the Vistula River, upstream from Gdansk, in 1993.  Now it’s working in Barbados.

photo date 24 APRIL 2016

Uraga Maru, 2005, has always worked in Japan and is currently in the Tokyo area.

photo date 14 JAN 2008

St Lucaya, 1991, with that bow (visible better here)  you’d never mistake her for a vessel built in North America or Europe…  The same is true of Smit Tahiti, again, better visible here.

photo date 24 APRIL 2016

And finally, Midnight Chief is a small RORO  that would be right at home in San Juan PR harbor, where Midnight Coast could be a twin.

photo date 28 APRIL 2016

 

Thanks to Jed, who always comes up with the unusual and obscure,  for these photos.

 

RV Neil Armstrong

Click here for some of the previous posts featuring research vessels.

Here was Armstrong yesterday around this hour, but

as of this writing, she’s almost back to Woods Hole, cruising along the southern side of the Elizabeth Islands, an archipelago I’ve never visited.

For more info on

Armstrong and her mission,

click here.

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who’s happy to see a science ship arrive with the fleet.

For more on the past 400 years of Woods Hole history, click here.

Meeting the Fleet 2017 b

In case you’re wondering which vessel(s) will be where, here’s the navy.mil listing.  These photos are ordered in the sequence they passed lower Manhattan.

USCGC Hamilton WMSL-753,less than three years old, is home-ported in Charleston  . . . and Seattle.   How does that work?

 

RV Neil Armstrong AGOR-27 replaced the venerable RV Knorr, mentioned here once some years back.

USS Kearsarge LHD 3, named for a mountain I climbed decades ago, is the fourth in a line of vessels named for the US warship commanded by John A. Winslow that sank Confederate raider CSS Alabama, two of whose crew were Raphael Semmes and Irving S. Bulloch,  off Cherbourg France in June 1864, less than a year before the end of the devastating US Civil War.  This account of the Battle of Cherbourg is worth a read.

 

Our friends to the North always have a representation, and HMCS Glace Bay MM 701 is this year’s.

Glace Bay‘s classmate Moncton appeared on this blog back in 2012 here.

Four YPs are in town from Annapolis. Here are some YP photos from two years ago, different perspective.

Here’s YP 705.

 

And finally USNS Yuma T-EPF-8 is without a doubt the newest vessel in this procession, having been accepted earlier in 2017.

I wonder who the photographer in the yellow foulies is.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who will be wandering around town trying to get more closeups these next few days.  And below is another shot of USS Kearsarge.

Meeting the Fleet 2017 a

Here are the posts I did each of the past two years.  I’ll call this the beginning of the processional.  How many government vessels do you count in the photo below?

Carefully screened support vessels--Rana Miller, Elizabeth McAllister, and Resolute— lead the procession, here past Ellis Island,

while small craft of the NYC Navy and Air Force and others patrol.

Other McAllister boats include Alex McAllister . . . and

Eric.

CG-56 USS San Jacinto leads the larger vessel contingent.  She was here as well in 2012.   Know the import of that location in April 1836?  

Tomorrow will feature close-ups of the rest of the fleet, but for now we’ll leave it here.

 

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who counts eight government craft in the first photo.  Here’s a post-fleet week photo set from 2009.

 

Always Fleet Week

That’s true along the Elizabeth River in Virgina.  Naval Station Norfolk always has a formidable array, like

LPD-24 USS Arlington,

T-ARC-7 USNS Zeus,

T-AKE-13 USNS Medgar Evers,

T-ESB-3 USNS Lewis B. Puller,

lots of patrols and a fence,

T-AKR-5063 USNS SS Cape May,

and its complement of barges.  Here’s more of a description.

 

Then, there’s the R class.

 

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who suggests taking a tour if you’re in the area.

 

What I Saw but Missed

This is a new title, although I’ve had part of the experience before.  Frequently, I take photos but don’t notice the most interesting detail of the shot until I download the files to the computer, the bigger screen.  Here and here are some examples.

This post, though, features others’ shots because I didn’t snap what I saw.  I couldn’t make sense of it and for some reason that escapes me now, I failed to use the zoom although I wondered what it looked like up closer.   As I said before, I don’t know why I did not shoot.

From my angle, what I saw was more like this, only tinier.  Click here for the source of these photos.

Strangely, what I took was in the opposite direction . . . maybe because I trusted there’d be something to find on a map or chart when I looked it up.

In the other case, what I saw was this . . . in the lower quarter of the photo, which originally appeared here.

And I took a photo of the sign so that I could

research it later, but I needed more time in location to get the shot I wanted.  Below is what I really wanted to know.  Click on the b/w photo for the source.

Anyhow, lessons to be learned as a photographer need to be heeded.

 

Enterprise

Enterprise seems a great title for a post on National Maritime Day, but here’s a question answered at the end of this post:  Why–other than the 1933 proclamation by Congress–is May 22 chosen for this day?  Answer at the end of this post.

Jake van Reenen took these photos yesterday in Clayton, NY.  The title evokes my Salvor post from eight plus years ago.

Atlantic Enterprise and crane barge are headed to the sixth boro, still many sea miles ahead.

Jarrett M assists with the tow, a role it played about a month upstream through the same waters here.

 

 

I’m eager to see this Salvor twin back in the sixth boro.

This post from nearly 10 years ago features my first view of this vessel–then called Barents Sea–under way.

Many thanks to Jake for these photos.  If all goes as planned, Enterprise will arrive here in less than two weeks.  Eyes peeled?

So, May 22 . . . it’s National Maritime Day because of Savannah, that’s SS Savannah, she who began the first Atlantic crossing on this date under steam power 199 years ago . . . well, at least steam powered her wheels for a little over 10% of the trip, but you need to start somewhere, eh?  And this fact is alluded to in the 1933 proclamation, as well as in the 2017 proclamation.

 

Click on the photo to get the source of the photo and the story of her short life.  And the 199 years ago, that just begs for some sort of memorializing in 2018…

Did Hurricane Sandy unearth SS Savannah wreckage?  Read here.