Weather

The sixth boro has had a lot of weather this past month;  Bowsprite‘s drawing and writing about it.  I’m just trying to weather it.  And Andres has arrived.

Hmm.  “Weathering storms”  . . . now that phrase puzzles me.  Storms are weather.  Metaphorical storms that need weathering like illness or loss   . . . what does it mean to “weather” them?  Be a hurricane to a gale and outlast it?  Be an anticyclone to a cyclone?  Uglyships’ very own Zeebart sent these fotos along from the North Sea.  Here  gCaptain writes about waterspouts.

I’m not sure how to describe my attitude toward weather, but I show such profound respect that I might just lack the uumph to weather serious storms or wild seas.   Last summer I met a Croatian sailor who’d just sailed the Gulf of Mexico through Rita.  To paraphrase his words:  “Our container vessel was a plaything tossed by the storm:  what a rush!

I loved it!  In fact, it’s why I work on the sea rather than an office,” he stated, smiling.

From the cliffs of Lower Manhattan, Joel Milton caught this weather, an approaching Jersey storm, downpour over Newark obscuring the Watchung ridges.

Here are some of my weather shots . . .  Mary Turecamo (?) exiting the Narrows for sea.

Newark Bay in April.

Unidentified unit at the Narrows in December.

Summer dusk last year.

Here’s a link to the “eternal storm” over Lake Maracaibo (Venezuela).  All otherwise unattributed fotos by Will Van Dorp.

And speaking of “wild seas and stormy weather,” the latest report from mid-Atlantic says Henry had his foremast carried away.  Read all about it here.

Taggee Proxy

or “relief crew,” I suppose.  First, thanks to two of my “taggees” the other day for being good sports.  I tagged Sea bart the other day, but he gave a host of excuses reasons–like being out on the North Sea at the moment–and sent me this pic of icebreaker Fennica to post on his behalf.

Explanation in Bart’s words:  “… action picture of the icebreaker Fennica … next to the K14-FB platform in the Dutch sector of the North Sea.”  (It turns out Fennica is Finnish and larger than she seems on this foto:  loa 377′  x 82′ x 42′ and almost 27,000 hp. Here’s a Finnish site on Fennica.   Also, it turns out that five countries have divvied up North Sea petroleum exploration much as more locally fishermen have areas for weirs, beds, and pots. )

Bart continues: “We [Kamara*] had to be at the platform as well to discharge some cargo and we had to do quit a battle to get in a position so the crane could reach us, wind and current quite strong that day. In the end I had to ask her to move out a bit as the bows of both vessels were coming particularly close but also her thrust was causing me more problems……and after we moved out I had the captain circle the platform so I could get a few nice shots of her.”

Bart, thanks for rising to the occasion.  Bonnie, see what you started?

*More Bart and his vessel Kamara from the North Sea soon.