Checking Back 2015 c

Remember the logic in this series is . . . the first pic of the month and the last pic of the month . . .

Early September found me still along the Acushnet . . .  Malena–as of this writing–is in Sierra Leone, having bounced around the Caribbean since departing New Bedford.

By September’s end, Wavertree was slathered in a beautiful red primer.

Early October . . . that’s North Star off the Orient Point, and Plum Gut, with Plum Island in the background.

Late October . . . a conversation led to an invitation to tour iMTT Bayonne and see Marion Moran at the tug fuel station from the waterside.  I still need to post about that.

November . . . and Med Sea bound for the Sound and beyond.

Joyce D. Brown going back to the kills.

And late in the month, my only view of Patty Nolan, on the hard in Verplanck. Click here for some of many posts on the 1931 Patty.

Early December . . .it’s mild and I decided to experiment with some color separation on Margaret Moran. Click here for a post from seven-plus years ago with Margaret Moran  . . .

And since December has not yet ended, I will post this in its incomplete state, with the promise of a “last December 2015”  post yet to come.

This is my last post for 2015.  Happy New Year.  May it be peaceful and safe.

Three Hours on the Sound 2

Here was the previous post.

It was all highlights while taking two ferries to get from Long Island to my destination, but here are some photos.  I left Orient Point along with small fishing boats like Fishy Business, 1995 built.

North Star, built in 1968 as an offshore supply vessel, was purchased by Cross Sound Ferry in 1984 and converted to an auto/passenger ferry.

 

As North Star arrived, the 2007 Plum Island left Orient for its namesake island.

Hudson River-bound Grande Caribe (1997) cut across the Sound with its unique profile.

Eventually the destination appears . . . the cliffs off the north side of Block Island.

 

The unmistakeable Viking (1976) passes as we round the island toward New Shoreham.

Interstate Navigation’s Block Island (1997) welcomes us into the old port.

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Merrily Merry 3

You might be wondering about the connection between the vessel below and my previous post . . . here about the delivery of the 1997 Rockefeller Center tree.

It turns out that in 2003 the vessel below —North Star— formerly  offshore supply vessel known as Rio Hanna (1968) and Pelto Seahorse

carried these Rockettes and a very happy crewman

along with the 2003 Rockefeller Center Christmas tree from New London to a pier near Intrepid, where the ramps were positioned and the truck rolled off on its way east to deliver the tree.    Read all about it here in the New London Day of November 12, 2003.    The fifty-year-old 79′ Norway spruce came from yard of Frances Katkauskas in Manchester, CT.

Here the crew pose for a foto near the Circle Line pier after delivering the tree.

Many thanks to Guy Torsilieri for providing the lead and to Richard Sise of Cross Sound Ferry for providing these photos.  These fotos were taken the year I moved to NYC but three years before I started this blog.

If anyone has other pics to share, I’d love to put them up here.  And 2014 . . . sounds like another tree-by-water delivery is overdue.

Reinvented

We Americans take for granted our ability to re-invent ourselves. I resigned from a teaching job once to become a trucker, a doctor I know gave it up to become a money manager, and one guy working as a custodian in Newark Airport used to be a dentist in Cuba.  My brother who owned a trucking company for a decade tells a story of one of his less disciplined truck drivers who quit and reappeared a few weeks later proclaiming himself a bridge inspector working for the New York State Thruway, a reinvention that did not inspire in my brother a lot of confidence about safe bridges. But ships seem to follow the same. The bulk carrier below entered the Narrows on Thursday as North Star.

Before that, though, she had been Aghia Sophia. What a difference is the set of associations!!

I suppose this re-identification seems strange to me in part because we don’t name things, for the most part. I don’t name my car although some people do. I haven’t named my house, except when I’m talking to my bird.

Dry dock-new paint job-new identity!!  I like that.  At least most vessels like the above aren’t called BCU #xx, as in “bulk carrying unit #37.”

Photos, WVD.