Ports of Western Mexico 4B

No sandy beaches here, although I saw a few farther north closer to the US border and the maps point to some farther south.

My first thought was that this was a cross, like the Christ near Rosarito I saw, but it turned out to be an aid to navigation.

The entrance to Ensenada is a breakwater quite built up with tetrapods. 

I don’t know how long ago Kittiwake was sold, but she was built at the very familiar Washburn & Doughty shipyard in Maine.  Click on that link for a walk-through of the 2002 expedition/research vessel built for some folks in Narragansett Bay.

Wan Hai 322 was in port, as was

Ken Yo.

 

On one pier a clutch of tugboats and fishing boats awaits a call.

The two I got the best view of were J. Porres (ex-CMM Cordoba 1998)

and this one I was unable to identify. Boluda Towage Mexico is the leader in Mexican towing and a subsidiary of the second largest towing group worldwide. 

Fish, shipping, and grapes figure of the seal on the city.  

Ensenada has a vineyard culture and a craft beer scene,

the latter of which I sampled after hours and found quite satisfactory.  This drinking establishment had interesting decor on ceiling and walls made from . . . styrofoam!

Salud!  All photos and any errors, WVD.

 

Ports of Western Mexico 4

Three and a half years ago I started this series.  I realize now I should just have called the three posts for the ports in question:  Guaymas in Sonora, Manzanillo in Colima, and Lázaro Cárdenas in Michoacán.  Having started the way I did, the Ensenada post will then just follow the pattern.  With half a million people, Ensenada is the third largest city in Baja California.  Besides being the starting/ending point for the Baja 500 and 1000 races, it’s also an important fishing port, although less so than it was prior to the US tuna ban.   I have enough pics for a second post on Ensenada, so I’ll call this the fish and road version, with another to follow.

I took this photo from the road. Down there but out of sight at that moment were tuna pens.

Translate whatever you want on this menu.  I can vouch for the marlin ahumado, smoked marlin soup!  The $45.00 Mexican converts to about $2.25 US, and it was realmente delicioso!

Southern Horizon is inside the port tied up to a floating drydock. 

Galileo is too common a vessel name to locate.

 

 

From my conveyances, I was witness to the arid and steep terrain.

Other fishing machines lounged on the moorings.

This is the rocky shoreline south of Rosarito.

A few days later, I got lots of photos through a bug-spattered windshield.

 

 

All photos, WVD, who is back in the sixth boro, behind in work, but for now successful in reclaiming the reins from the robots.  I hope you enjoyed their tenure.  They will be back for an extended period in June.

Sea of Cortez in Time of COVID

I’ve been social distancing in Queens, but this didn’t prevent me from telecomexchanging the news with my sister.  She took these photos and told me about her experiences sailing in the Sea of Cortez.   You can click on the link to the article at the end of this post.

I hope to get to the Sea some day;  parts of it are designed a UNESCO World heritage site.

 

 

Isla del Carmen is a refuge for bighorn sheep whose future was threatened in mainland areas of Baja California.

The plethora of wildlife notwithstanding, the gist of the article was . . . the Sea for people in the time of COVID.  That is the link to the article.  I’d been arranging to get to Mexico a few months back, but it’s not going to happen for a while.

All photos, John and Lucy Knape.

For more of their photos, click here.

Ports of Western Mexico 3

Quick . ..  name the oldest (or first) verifiable European settlement in current US territory?  Answer follows. Giovanni da Verrazzano visited the bay that became the sixth boro in 1524 but he didn’t settle.

This is the port of Guaymas, visited and claimed for Spain in 1539 by Francisco de Ulloa.  I can’t tell you anything about the tug here, Tolteca-1.  She looks like she could have been designed up north.  Anyone guess the La Paz BSC port of registry?

Click here for info on this port, and  connections between this port, 200 miles south of the Arizona border, and the US.  Here is an article on hopes for the port from the perspective of a few years back.

Rio Balsas is a crude oil tanker.

I’d love to learn more about Tolteca-1.  BCS is an abbreviation for Baja California Sur. 

Meanwhile, if you want to know more about Guaymas and the following:

-the first* ever aerial bombardment of a naval target,

–pearls,

–Rey Feo

and NASA . . .

 

click here.

And the answer to the question on the oldest settled current US city . . . . is St. Augustine, 1565!!

Many thanks to the Maraki crew for these photos.  More Maraki here.

 

Ports of Western Mexico 2

Here was the first installment of this, and who knows where this will go.

Congratulations to Mage and Linda and anon who recognized the location almost as soon as I put up yesterday’s post.  Les, I don’t have a calendar yet, but I’ve already re-read the Steinbeck and Ricketts log. I don’t know how the restoration of their 1937 boat Western Flyer is going, but here’s a link to follow for updates.    If you have nine and a half minutes, watch this video account of the whats and whys of one of the most influential “science boats” in 20th century western North America.

Let’s kick up from where installment 1 ends . . .  and in Manzanillo, and the 1998 tug Manzanillo.

VB Yucatan is the forward tug here;  maybe someone can identify the others. Boluda has recently begun to provide towing services in the port.

Crossing over into the western inside of Baja, a parade in LaPaz featured very familiar KW trucks like this.

There is fishing, but some fisherman have re-invented themselves in the tourism industry.

 

There are charters and small cruise ships. 

But here’s a gem,

even older than Western Flyer, Ted Geary’s 1924 creation MV Westward and still at work.

Meanwhile, to paraphrase the bards, I’m stuck here in early northern spring with the baja blues again.

Thanks to the mystery mariners for these glimpses of western Mexico.

 

Something Different 40

Let’s leave this as a mystery location for now.

It’s on a list I have for the next year . . .

Here’s the landing craft . . .

Ashore all magnitude of stark beauty awaits.  Follow the cairns to stay on the trail.

 

If you want to guess, some of these photos

were taken from the trail to Steinbeck Canyon.

All photos from anonymous gallivanters for now.  Conjecture is welcome with the huge clue I gave you.

Happy spring.

Really Random Tugs 44

First, from Kyle Stubbs, three Vane tugs  (Elizabeth Anne, Hudson, and Delaware alongside DoubleSkin 501) which would not be that unusual on this blog, except he took the photo in Seattle over by Terminal 5.  Click here for previous photos from Kyle.

Leaping south to the Mexican port of Manzanillo–north of Lazaro Cardenas–it’s VB Yucatan, in between  CMM Jarocho. and CMM Maguey. 

Not a tugboat, but also in Manzanillo .  . it’s Elizabeth Oldendorff, a gearless differently-geared sister of Alice.

In the center of the photo below, I’m unable to identify this Grupo TMM tug. 

Heading up the Hudson River, here’s an oldie-but-goodie, Ronald J. Dahlke.  Photo was taken about a month ago by Willard Bridgham in Waterford.  Anyone know where she’s gone to now?  She’s a sister of Urger and built in 1903!!

And it is that season, as this photo of Cornell by Paul Strubeck reminds us.

Thanks to Kyle, Maraki, Willard, and Paul for use of these photos.

Ports of Western Mexico

Quick question:  What is Mexico’s leading port?  How about, several western Mexico ports?  Given all the TV coverage of Mexico, you’d think we would all know these things.  I don’t have a TV and read, but I did not know the name of this port.

Here’s a photo of Mexico’s largest port as seen from sea last week by the Maraki crew.

Mexico’s largest port has an advantage in that ships serving the US heartland from Asia needn’t pass through the Panama Canal.

So here it is, by some accounts . . . Lázaro Cárdenas.  As shipping into the US increases, the major ports become congested, and new routes are sought.  From Lázaro Cárdenas (LC)  to Laredo is about 850 miles.  And you bypass Long Beach, LA, and the Panama Canal.  Since it’s a new port, there’s room to grow.

 

Here’s a closer up of the port layout. Here’s more on LC with a great aerial photo.

By other account, Manzanillo is the largest port.   Maraki tied up there recently and sent these photos along.

 

The skipper poses in front of public art in the port.

So here’s why I brought up TV, and I remember the Lewis, Jhally, and Morgan study from back in 1991.  The conclusion was . . . the more folks watched TV coverage of the Gulf War, the less they knew about causes and potential consequences.

I fear TV still has this type of deficiency.

Thanks to the Maraki crew for these photos.   Previously they sent along Colombian tugs and more.

Back three years ago, I did a whole month of posts on ports. 

Morro Redondo Express

Rt Hon Paul E. Martin called here before a month over three years ago, that time carrying the same type of cargo.

I took these photos yesterday, and believe it or not, I felt only a few drops of rain.

The Martin is the second self-unloader to call in the sixth boro in three days, which must be some sort of a record.

Eric and Bruce did a magnificent job of spinning the bulker around.

Once spun around, foot by foot she was moved with precision to the dock.

 

To get this cargo here, Martin traveled three weeks and transited the Panama Canal.

 

Can anyone tell me the meaning of the “10H VOID” marking just below the name and CSL class of the freighter and the “VOID7” marking just above the water line?

And where is Morro Redondo, you ask?  It’s on the island of Cedros, a bit over 300 miles SSE of San Diego, CA.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Until an hour before posting, there were two Canadian self-unloaders in our harbor, which is truly remarkable.  Algoma Integrity, as of posting, is not even 10 nm outside the Narrows.

 

Cast Closeups 3

Here’s the engine order telegraph and a bit of uniform.  Guess the vessel?  Doubleclick enlarges fotos.

Here’s more signage.  Identification later in the post.

And a closeup of the topsail furling system of Etoile, one of the French schooners.

More brass and brightwork on Etoile.

And the guard of the passerelle.

Not far away, crew on this vessel looked less inviting.  Guess the nationality?

Canadian.  She’s guarding HMCS Iroquois, built in the same Quebec town as Mathilda!

Here was Iroquois last Wednesday converging with other vessels in the sixth boro, and

here she is nose to nose with USCGC (WLB 202) Willow, alternatively captured by bowsprite.

From the bridge deck of Argus, looking over the stern and toward the west . . . Governors Island and New Jersey beyond.   Along the horizon near the south tip of Governors Island . . . those are the cranes of Bayonne and even fainter beyond that Port Elizabeth.

Here’s the view from the forward positioned bridge.  Back in 2007 I caught these fotos of Oslo Express, the only bridge-forward container vessel I can recall seeing in the sixth boro.

Here’s a bit more info on Argus.  My tour guide and globalsecurity.org describe Argus as the only vessel in the world to have a CT scanner.    As it turns out, she also has a cat.  This is Simon, and yes . . . Simon went off duty decades ago, but his healing presence in the hospital lives on.  More sobering, Argus has patient monitors that allow patients to have a chance to survive IED-caused triple amputations.

Nearing dusk, yesterday afternoon . . . the Brooklyn vessels as seen from the water:  stern of Seneca, Shirane, the French Belle Poule and Etoile, and Cuauhtemoc.

Which brings me back to the Mexican ship.  Some of the cadets I spoke with finally explained this flag . . . it’s the captain’s personal flag . . . personal pirate flag, actually is what the cadet said.

Aboard were over 250 crew, who started their morning yesterday polishing brass before they let any visitors up the pasillo.

And the vessel was immaculate.

Below the stack here, I’m told, is a 1250 hp Cat.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who needs to get to another job now.