LL Eastport Layup 2

Another quick post . . .

sardines once made this a prosperous port.

Traces linger.

 

A handful of boats are already way down at mid tide.

 

 

Too bad I wasn’t here on December 31 for the sardine and maple leaf drop!  Check the Tides Institute website here. 

 

Here’s more on Old Sow Whirlpool.

My guess . . . sardine fishing boat . . .

All photos, not that much info . . . WVD, who departs tomorrow and doesn’t know how soon the next post will happen.  Stand by.

LL Eastport Layup 1

Here’s a quick “sign of life” post.  We’re laid up in the archipelago of Eastport for preparations to get under way.  But occasionally I see something and grab the camera.

Like Fairhaven Princess II.  I’m not sure what work she does, but I trust someone will comment.  My guess is that she’s involved in some sort of fishery.

Hopper II is a ferry between Eastport ME and Campobello Island.

Sunday she was quite busy.

Note the guy on the motorcycle in the photo below.

 

More photos by WVD when I can post. 

I read this about Eastport:  “1833 Eastport was the second largest trading port in the country after New York City.  Farms produced hay and potatoes. Industries included a grain mill, box factory and carding mill. But the island’s economy was primarily directed at the sea.   … but the fishing industry would decline, and many people moved away. Indeed, the city went bankrupt in 1937. In 1976, the Groundhog Day Gale destroyed many structures along the waterfront.”  You can read that and more here.

I need to come up here when I’m free.  Here’s more on Eastport. And I know Jackie F. McAllister is nearby, but I can’t figure out how to get a photo without trespassing or getting a skiff. 

Uncrewed 4

Previous “uncrewed” posts can be found here. This post is used with permission from https://lemarin.ouest-france.fr/    I’ve added that publication to my blogroll. Google helps you translate. 

The images below show what that publication calls “le drone Drix,” a drone developed by exail.

This surface drone has been traveling the Bay of Biscay this month studying the interaction between dolphins and their prey.   It’s part of what’s called Delmoges, expanded as shown in this link. 

Part of what interested me about this article is that the French use the word “drone.”  This sent me in search of the word’s derivation and I found it reflects back to WW1, bugs, Dayton OH, and the bee world, as seen here. 

Many thanks to the editor of LeMarin  Anne-Laure Grosmolard for use of this article.  Credit for the photos is Bernard Jégou. 

 

January 2023 Fishing

Eastern Welder and 

Dutch Girl have been coming into the sixth boro to rake clams for as long as I’ve been keeping a record, which goes back only to winter 2007.

It’s probably high time I get more info from the commercial fishermen themselves, but as speaking only as a photographer here, I associate winter and these boats in the boro just as I associate summer and recreational boats. 

Enjoy these photos, and as a believer in group sourcing, maybe I’ll be again blessed to have someone who knows this world of winter fishing

share some insights and information.  As with anything, there are stories to hear, just as in the harbor

there are clams to dig and surface.

Meanwhile, stay safe out there. 

Here’s the history perspective. 

Here’s the NJ state perspective. 

All photos, this week, WVD. 

 

Fall Fishing 2022

Party boats like Ocean Eagle V and 

Gypsea II seemed to have lots of fisherman aboard of late. 

Boats like Twisted Sisters

 

 

and Taylor Nicole have also been running traps . . .

 

all tribute to a healthy water system, it seems.

All photos in the past month, WVD. 

People on the Boro 33

Keyport Princess dropped anchor in front of the Statue the other morning.  Does anyone need more proof that fish are currently thriving in the boro?

Climate Change also came through the boro from the Sound, no doubt heading for warmed waters for the next half year, but while transiting, 

this boater takes in the beauty of the day in the seas’ water of the boro.

Red Hook and RV Blue Sea pass each other, making me wonder what the students might be learning about the GUP vessel it’s passing.

James William alternates between containerized trash and crushed rock.  Here a deckhand has pleasant weather for the job. 

Over in Whitehall, three workers on a beam

attend to maintenance on a “wall” of the ferry rack. 

Hayward periodically serves as a boro VIP excursion vessel.

The intended purpose of that boom is fishing out floating or sunken debris that might pose a hazard to navigation. 

Pioneer takes another set of folks around the sylvan edges of the Upper Bay to enjoy the warmth of the waning year.

And finally, I’m grateful that in the design process for the latest generation of ferries, decisions were made to ensure that Sandy Ground and her two sisters have ample space for folks to enjoy the views as they transit the Bay.

All photos, WVD, who himself loves this time of year.

Small Craft 33

Small craft as they’ve been referred to in this series are quite large compared to the ones in today’s post.  These are tiny, and likely portable.  See them below?

Kayak fishing dates from time immemorial;  hunting and fishing were their original reason to be. 

 These are high tech evolutions from skin boats, though. 

This is not the first time I’ve seen folks fishing from kayaks in the boro, but as a former fisherman myself, I worry that hooking that fish and staying safe 

might sometimes be mutually exclusive activities.

 

All photos this week, WVD.

 

Out of the Bayou 8

This post covers a day and a half of travel, shown in pink and green.  You’ll understand why by the end of this post.

We departed Chandeleur Islands and headed for Mississippi’s Gulf Islands, part of a National Seashore.

In the distance off Pascagoula, we saw Crowley tug Achievement and her barge.

 

No Worries . . . that’s the small open fishing boat anchored near the rig.

 

F/V Apache Rose was at anchor showing off its “wing trawling” innovation.

Lois Ann L. Moran, with its very familiar livery, anchored off Mobile Bay, to the west of a dozen or so anchored vessels.

Sand Island Light marks the southernmost tip of the state of Alabama.

I’ll just point out here that we saw countless rigs off Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.  That fact contrasts with what will follow in an upcoming post.

Lots of placards indicated presence of Cox and Telos, but I saw none marked Hilcorp or other energy companies. 

We ended that day off Perdido Key Resort in Floribama, where some skullduggery appeared to warrant keeping our distance. 

The next morning we entered Pensacola

for some crew change and grub shopping. 

Fort Pickens, one of only four southern US forts to remain in Union hands during the Civil War, lay on a barrier beach.   Updates were made to the fort up through WW2.

USCGC Walnut (WLB-205) is homeported in Pensacola, but nearby were two other CGCs,

Reliance and

Diligence.  A WLB and a WMEC made up part of the fleet in the sixth boro back in May 2022.

And here is the reason I extended this installment all the way to Pensacola.  As we made for our landing, we passed Gulf Dawn, which itself was passing that large blue/white vessel in the background . . . .

It’s Jacklyn, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket landing ship-to-be.  Well, now it will never be, since Julie F towed it out of Pensacola just two days ago, destination ISL Brownsville TX.  The story in detail can be read/heard here.

All photos, any errors, WVD, who will reprise this trip on the blog soon with more vessels.

 

 

Thanks to Tony A 34

I’ve previously cited the line about eight million stories in the naked city, a reference to a 1948 movie and subsequent TV show.  More on all that at the end of this post, but for now, with the sixth boro added in, I’d double that number . . .  16 million stories in the naked city, considering all six boros.   And thanks to Tony, here are a bunch of stories from the past few days that I’d otherwise have missed entirely.

An Italian destroyer visited the sixth boro, D-554 Caio Duilio.

A Maine purse seiner Ocean Venture came through.  I caught her coming through the boro here two years ago. 

More on Ocean Venture can be found here on pp. 20-23 of March 2021 of National Fisherman.

And there’s more . .  all from the past week, name that tall ship with the flag of República Dominicana?

That’s Weeks James K in the foreground. 

So here it gets confusing;  it appears this DR training ship barquentine is called Cambiaso.  She was acquired from Bulgaria in August 2018.  However, it’s possible that for a short and unrecorded period of time, the same barquentine carried the name Maria Trinidad Sanchez.  What happened?  Was that simply a delivery name, or am I still showing effects of my time in the heat with the alligators while the robots attempted a coup?

That being said, along with a DR training ship, there was also another DR naval vessel.  Do her lines look familiar?

Vintage?  Where launched?

Today she’s known as DR’s Almirante Didiez Burgos.  But at launch in Duluth in 1943, she was USCGC Buttonwood, a WW2 veteran and now flagship of the DR Navy.  She reminds me of USCGC Bramble, which I saw way back when on the St. Clair River. After an epic journey from Michigan to Mississippi for refitting by a private individual, she might now be scrapped.

All photos by Tony A and shared with WVD, who feels privileged by this collaboration. 

I also think, given the reference to Naked City, that moving pictures producers should revisit the concept of a Route 66 series, incorporating Charles Kuralt’s influences.   Want the season 1 episode 1 of Route 66?  Click on the image below and prepare to go back in time for good or ill!  It’s disturbing watching.  Season 1 episode 1 provides some backstory about how a “broke” Manhattan kid came to be driving a 1960 Corvette.  Hint:  Hells Kitchen, the East River, barges, and bankruptcy are all involved.  A luminary of the series was screenwriter Stirling Silliphant, a name I should have known earlier. 

And to give equal time to Charles Kuralt, watch this 8-minute segment on wooden replica vessel building in Wisconsin.  Watch highlights as the boat builder, Ferd Nimphius, works on his 113th build.

 

 

Sixth Boro Sampler 5

Count them . . . at least four very different vessels:  Saint Emilion with barge, JRT waiting to assist, Grace D shuttling people and supplies, and a sloop. 

Here’s more from hither and yon around the sixth boro:  Navigator at “old navy” topping off the ferry reserves, 

Popeye fishing in front of Ellis Island, 

Meagan Ann taking the stern of this interesting sailing trawler,

another sloop passing the Statue line, a Circle Line boat, as well as a Statue Cruises vessel,

and a NY Media Boat touring RIB.

Yes, I’m back to that trawler.  It’s called Briney Bus out of Miami, but besides that, I don’t know much.  My guess is that, like many boats, it’s heading for the  NYS Canal system, which opened two days ago.

The parting shot . . . Meagan Ann.

All photos and any errors, WVD.