Tampa Bay 2

As I suggested in yesterday’s post, Tampa Bay is a huge estuary.  It’s quite a busy port, as well.  On our way to refuel, we passed OSG Courageous and OSG 205.

Small container ships like Guadalupe seem to shuttle between Tampa, Progreso, and Panama City FL.  

I’d love to know the story of this laid-up fleet.  The only one I can identify here is Alex Chouest, foreground. 

In yesterday’s post, I pointed out that Lady Terea had been called Mr. Russell and worked in the sixth boro as the new TZ Bridge was being built.  Wherever it delivered those barges to, it was already back in Tampa for more.

 

Fleet Trader II took on cargo, and 

Xin Nan Sha (which might just translate as “new Nansha“) shuffled boxes. 

Endeavor is a ship-docking module, aka SDM.

A top-down view of this design can be found here. 

Our goal was this shrimp dock, which allowed us to crew change and refuel.  

Before I disembarked, I did notice a familiar barge beyond our berth.  Barge Tennessee last appeared on this blog here. 

All photos, WVD, who could post photos on my shore adventures, but I usually don’t.  All I can say is I’d love to go back and explore the Tampa area, Venice, and then certainly check out the big bend of the forgotten coast and more . . .  maybe Route 98.

 

Random Tugs 220

Here’s a stranger in the harbor . . . OSG Courageous.  Winter does seem like the time to see the larger units moving oil products. Crowley’s 16,000 hp Legend is in the AK as of this writing.  If anyone snaps a photo, I’d love to see it.   Back in winter 2012, I posted photos of Legend here still on the hard as a new build.

OSG Courageous, 8000 hp,  is married to this 200,000 barrel barge OSG-244.   Click here for my first view of an even larger OSG tug, Vision, 12,000 hp.

Lincoln Sea was the largest tug I’d ever seen back 10 years when we crossed paths near Mariner’s Harbor.

This was her arrival from somewhere in New England yesterday.

At the same moment, Dylan Cooper was lightering a tanker I’d seen before as

Navig8 Stealth II, now intriguingly renamed Aquadisiac.

Eric McAllister assisted Glorious Leader . . .,

which these days sounds like it refers to a dictator.

To close, the venerable Frances moves cold stone through cold water,

but it’s winter.  Crank up the heat and put on some extra layers.  Click here and scroll to see photos of Frances I took in 2010 when she still had the Turecamo wood grained colors.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Random Tugs 167

Given the history and range of projects of Elsbeth II, you might imagine how thrilled I was to see her for the first time yesterday.  And she has to be among a small set of working vessels based in North America with brightwork!  She truly fits under the category exotic.

 

I saw this tugboat six years ago in the Delaware River, but Sarah D looks spanking new  in NYS Marine Highway colors.

Happy flag day.  Do you know the significance of this date?

OSG Courageous, she’s one large tugboat and an infrequent

visitor in this port.  I can’t quite make out the barge name. Of course, she’s not as colossal as her big sister –OSG Vision–who spent some time here . . . four (!!) years ago.

Sassafras is a fixture in the sixth boro, but she rarely looks as good as she does when many shore dwellers in the other boros are just waking up.  Here she

lies alongside Petali Lady.

Mister Jim here is lightering (?) bulker Antigoni B, who seems to have since headed upriver.

 

And since this is called random tugs, let me throw in two photos from the Digital collections of the New york State archives . . . SS Brazil entering the sixth boro on May 31, 1951.  What the photo makes very clear to me is how much traffic in the harbor has changed in 65 years.   Can anyone identify the six tugboats from at least three different companies here?  I can’t.

Here the party passes a quite different looking Governors Island.

All photos except for the last two by Will Van Dorp.  These last two come from a treasure trove aka Digital Collections of the New York State Archives. 

Unrelated:  If you’re free Saturday, it’s the annual mermaid migration on Coney Island.