Winter Bird

It’s a quick post today, since I’m on a short gallivant.  When I took a hike this morning and saw two cardinals on a snowy branch, I knew exactly it was time to post a photo I took earlier this week of Fugro Enterprise,

a vessel that reminds me of a cardinal with some traces of snow I’ll bet they never see in Patterson LA, a town I drove through last month and where the temperature today is 78!

Both photos, WVD, who’s posted photos of Fugro Enterprise before here. Strange, in “autocorrect logic,” Fugro wants to be “furor.”

If you’re a new reader on this blog or just wonder why such a vessel exists, here are full specs from the Fugro website.

 

 

CB 2019 G

The rosy fingers of dawn paint the eastern sky, as we

prepare to meet the pilot boat off Port Weller, which means Lake Ontario is nearly behind us.  The pilot has just departed Federal Yukina via Mrs C, and

and readies to join us.

Summertime is the repair season for icebreakers like CCGS Pierre Radisson, named for the renegade French fur trapper.

Behold the immense entrance to the double flight at Welland lock 4.

A crewman on Tim S. Dool employs and time-tested communication device, and it actually works well.

Saginaw discharges coal.

CSL Welland meets us.

Just before climbing W-8, we pass Federal Seto, Happy Rover, and wait for

Algoma Strongfield.

Atlantic Huron is tied up just north of the scrapyard . . . but that’s for tomorrow’s post.

All photos in the Welland Canal by Will Van Dorp, who posts about four days behind these days since wifi is not always available.  When this post appears today, we are approaching the south end of Lake Huron.

 

Xin Mei Zhou

English is the international language of navigation, air and water.  I can pronounce the name below the Chinese, although I’ve no idea what it means or refers to.  Do folks still talk about Seaspeak?  I once applied for a job teaching Seaspeak but never even got a response.

Xin Mei Zhou arrived in the sixth boro of NYC–Port Elizabeth– on February 1, after having left Kaohsiung two days after Christmas.

She’s not a record-setting size these days, although 10 years ago nothing of this size came to the port,

but that’s what the billion-plus-dollar raising of the Bridge was all about.

 

 

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Thanks to Jan van der Doe 2

If you’ve yet to make your first trip to the Netherlands and you’re interested in tugboats, then Maassluis in one of a handful of must-see places.    Jan van der doe went there recently and sent these.  I was there last year and got some of the same photos, just two months later in the season.  As you can see,  the Dutch have wet and misty winters.  This is the “binnenhaven” or “inner harbor.”  For some great 1945 photos of the same place, click here.

I’m not repeating details on these boats, because most of them I commented on last year.

This boat’s name is tribute to the same person for whom our fair river is named, obviously.

Here we move counterclockwise around the harbor;  that white building with the pointy tower is the National Tugboat Museum.

 

I’d translate Krimpen as “shrink,” but I don’t know if that’s the sense here.

Here we’re back to the location of photo #1 but we look to the right, toward the big river, the Nieuwe Waterweg.  “Waterweg” translates as “waterway.”

 

 

If I walk in this direction a few blocks and follow this boat looking to my left, I’d be headed past Schiedam and the Mammoet Bollard Building and get to waters edge Rotterdam, about which I’ve done lots of posts.

All photos thanks to Jan van der Doe.

Gallivanting to Troy

As we progress toward winter as well, the daylight hours shorten, making less to photograph, but I was happy we passed lock E8 in daylight to capture the crane GE uses to transship large cargos, like the rotor of a few weeks ago.

The changing leaves complement the colors of the vintage floating plant,

locks,

and even Thruway vessels.

Venerable Frances is a tug for all seasons as is

the Eriemax freighter built in Duluth,

both based near the city of the original Uncle Sam, which splashes its wall

 

with additional color and info.

Once this Eriemax passenger vessel raises its pilot house, we’ll continue our way to the sixth boro.

Will Van Dorp took all these photos in about a 12 hour period.