Really Random Ships 1

Let’s try a variation:  I’ve random tugs and random ships, in which I’ve confined most pics to a single general location and a a single photographer . . . me.  “Really random tugs” combines locations, eras, and photographers.  So why not do the same with ships, although in this case I’ve taken almost all the photos but in a variety of locations and times.

But this first one launches the concept.  What can you surmise or identify about the photo below, not taken by me?  Answer at the end of this post.

Spring brings the Great Lakes back to life. Here is a March 11 AIS capture of traffic on the Lakes.  The “arrows” are US and Canadian CG doing ice ops.  The rivers system around Chicago has some traffic.

The NOAA satellite image below provides the explanation . . .  what looks ice covered IS.  With the Soo scheduled to open on Monday, March 25, icebreaking carries high priority.   Note Green Bay as well.

March 22 marked the opening of the Welland Canal.  The first upbound ship this year was Thunder Bay;  this photo I took in Quebec in October 2017.  The first down bounder through the Welland was Algoma Spirit, but I’ve never gotten a photo of her.

Kaye E. Barker was the first springtime vessel out of Duluth;  I took this photo in the last week of navigation before the Soo closed on January 15.  The Soo is scheduled to open on Monday, March 25.

The KVK is a busy place all year round, although it’s not uniformly busy.  On this day last month, Alpine Maya followed Port Richmond, which  followed Atlantic Sun.

Stolt Integrity here stemmed while waiting to replace the tanker in the distance to leave the berth.

Tankers come in a variety of sizes;  Selasse is a particular small one.

By now, have you figured out that first photo?  I’ll give you a clue:  vessel name is Nggapulu and as of last night she was in BauBau.

Traffic moves at all hours;  night photos turn out quite unsatisfying, but golden hour ones I enjoy.  Can you guess the hull color on this one?

Foreshortening belies the amount of distance actually between the stern of the Evergreen ship and Diane B/John Blanche.

The colorful Stena tankers, bears and all,  seem to appear mostly in winter.

So here you have the answer, sort of.  Indonesia, being a far-flung archipelago supports a ferry system called Pelni, an acronym.  As an example of distances here, find Jakarta lower left.  From there to Makassar roughly in the center is 1000 miles!  Pelni operates about two dozen ferries of various designs.  Ngga Pulu has classic lines and was launched in 2002.

Here’s an English language site about traveling the archipelago.   Restless?  Aye peri!

Many thanks to Hannah Miller for sharing the photo of Ngga Pulu.  I’m not sure how that’s pronounced, but it’s named for a mountain.  Learning about Pelni and seeing this map gives me a whole new appreciation of Dewaruci.

Sixth Boro Fifth Dimension IS3

Here’s another photo shared by Ingrid Staats.  If you’ve been to this blog before, you recognize the bridge, but what are Vega and Altair you might wonder.  The ferries are aptly named, since they are two characters in a Chinese love story, Vega the weaver girl and Altair the cowherd.

Here they operated within the fleet of the Bergen Point Ferry, both built in 1946 and discontinued in 1961. 

The ferries were sold after discontinuation of the service, and both were lost in 1961:  Vega off New Jersey and Altair between Mexico and Cuba deep in the Yucatan Channel.   These are small boats to be going to Mexico:  61′ x 38′ x 8′, but another of the set, Deneb, made it and appeared in the Mexican registry.

To drive along Richmond Terrace these days, you don’t get the same sense crossing Port Richmond Avenue that you would have had 70 or 80 years ago . . .  click on the photo below for a photographic tour of what used to be a crossing into NJ.

I used to have a photo of the sign still hanging near the ferry until quite recently, but when I gallivanted around there a few days ago, it was gone and my photo is as well, victim of one of my misguided cullings to reduce the memory demands on my computer.

In that recent gallivant, I did look along the west side of Port Richmond Avenue at this church and graveyard. 

This is some old NYC history, and

names memorialized in places are reflected here . . . .  Prall’s Island today is uninhabited but known to everyone who travels through the Arthur Kill.

Many thanks to Ingrid for use of the Vega-Altair photo.  More of her photos to come.

And while you’re at the Reformed Church, go another 100 yards inland and check out Nat’s Men’s Shop and buy some warm work clothes.

 

GHP&W 27

Know this water, more of a waterway than a harbor?  The distant buildings are a clue.  See the one just left of the center of bridge center, needle thin?

Here’s another clue . . . the structure near the right side of the photo, like an old time gas station pump?

Or this one left of the crane, looking like the business end of a blue crab whose pincers are down?

Or this wreck?  What WAS this boat?  I’ve asked a million people who all say they also asked a million people.  Anyone know?

And seriously, the first photo showed the Throgs Neck Bridge, the second the LaGuardia airport traffic tower, and the third . . . Arthur Ashe stadium.  The photo above with the mystery wreck in the Whitestone Bridge .  .. the second one in when you travel from Long Island Sound into . . . the East River

And that needle thin tower in 432 Park, said to be the tallest residential building in the hemisphere.  Click here for views from the tallest bathtub in that building.  And in the foreground of the photo below, truly a place of superlatives . . . . Rikers Island, i.e., one of the largest incarceration places in the world.  No gunk holing is tolerated anywhere near this place.

Rikers has literally overflowed its banks.  This is the off-Rikers portion of NYC Corrections, the Vernon C. Bain Center.   

Click here for a tugster photo of part of the Rikers fleet.  And here for Bain’s NYC floating prison predecessor.

By now, most of you know this is the East River and we’re traveling west.  Here the DEP sludge tanker Red Hook prepares to depart the Hunt’s Point wastewater treatment plant.   Click here for some tugster posts on treating waste and keeping sixth boro waters as clean as possible despite the teeming millions that live along the banks of these waters.   And if you’ve never read my Professional Mariner story on the latest generation of these tankers, you can do so here.

Between Rikers and Hunts Point, there are the North and South Brother Islands;  see my post from South Brother here from a long time ago.  The safer channel goes around the north of North Brother, but in daylight, most vessels can shoot between the two.

I’ve never set foot on North Brother, but I imagine it a terrestrial version of the “graveyard” on the Arthur Kill. 

 

A “night wharf” on Wards Island for the sludge tankers lies here just east of the Hell Gate and RFK bridges there.

This strait–between Roosevelt Island and the upper east side of Manhattan–in the tidal strait that’s known as the East River can see some fast currents. Somewhere off to the right is the vantage point Jonathan Steinman takes his East river pics from.

This is not a cargo pier.  These vessels are repairing the bulk heading.

 

Anyone know the identity of these two “houses” nestled up there in the eastisde of Manhattan cliffs?

 

These barges called the Water Club  . . . I’ve never been there.  Any personal reviews?

 

Newtown Creek awaits its fate here at a dock in Wallabout Bay right across

from the rock wharf where Alice Oldendorff has discharged millions of tons of crushed rock over the years.

After we duck under the Brooklyn Bridge, we near the end of the East River,

where South Street Seaport Museum has been fighting the noble fight to

preserve ships and the upland including the wharves.

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

GUP 4

Here was GUP 3, and here was one GUP-related post since then, about the sale of a peer of the vessel below.  In case you don’t check the links and are wondering what GUP is, it’s my neologism for “gross universal product,” AKA sewage.  I’m doing this post now as a complement to my article in PM magazine.    North River is currently high and dry and getting some paint.  More on that later.

For now, let’s have a look at the fleet carrying the load . . . or loads.

The most recently arrival is Rockaway, in service now nearly a year.

Coming right up on a one-year anniversary of start of service is Port Richmond.  If you are wondering about the names, all three  new boats are named for sewage facilities serving NYC.  Here’s an article about the Port Richmond facility.

And the original of this class is Hunts Point, in service now about 15 months.

Now if you conclude that Rockaway, Port Richmond, and Hunts Point look alike . . . well, they’re virtually identical.

Not true for Red Hook, which has been in service now for over six years.

I compared bows of the current generation with that of Red Hook here about a year ago.

Here’s the most recent photo I’ve taken of North River.  How much service–even back–she has left in her I can’t tell you.

Meanwhile, all hats off to this fleet which keeps sixth boro waters smelling as sweet as they do to us and feeling as hospitable as they do to all the other critters that depend on this habitat.

GUP 3

Here were 1 and 2 of this series, and here was a much earlier post about NYC DEP’s essential service.

Below is North River and Hunts Point as seen from Rockaway.

Port Richmond heads into Hell’s Gate,

Red Hook in the distance and Port Richmond passing by,

and finally all three new boats with Red Hook in the distance.  Here are some photos of Red Hook as she appeared when first in service in early 2009.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.