Transitioning 9

This 1962 WYTL has looked like this ever since I first saw her, which was likely 2005. She was built early in the string in WYTLs, earlier than the ones still used in the sixth boro and upriver by the USCG.

The photos above and below I took in 2010 in Mystic, and

this one below at the Great North River tugboat race, 2009.  Move over, Growler, who’s reabsorbed into the James River fleet. And get ready to welcome .  ..

. . . that same smile  !@#!

 

Undaunted!   Details later.

The last three photos come thanks to Jonathan Kabak of the USMMA Sailing Foundation.

Ports along the ICW

This post is a direct follow-up to one I did a week ago, documenting the 270-nm trip from Kings Point NY to Norfolk aboard USMMA Sailing Foundation vessel Tortuga.  This post documents the second and final leg of the trip to Tortuga‘s winter berth in New Bern NC, a 179-nm trip from Norfolk.

Let’s start here.  Departure time on day 1 is 1100 h. If you think the navy vessel in dry dock looks familiar, well . . . it visited the sixth boro in May 2012, and I toured the ship DDG 57 USS Mitscher at that time here.

A USN presence is pervasive along the Elizabeth river portion of the ICW, but the Norfolk Naval Ship is

technically in Portsmouth. The vessel above is AS 41 USS McKee. 

Click here and here for info on the Elizabeth River, technically a tidal estuary.  Click on the map below to get interactivity.

Here McLean Contracting Co. tug Fort Macon works on the replacement of the Steel Bridge in Chesapeake VA.

I was surprised to learn there’s a lock in the ICW, the Great Bridge Lock.  I was even more surprised to learn the USACE contracts the operation and maintenance of the lock to a company called US Facilities.

I must read more about the ICW, but in WW2 it proved a safe route for commerce when enemy submarines preyed on vessels offshore.

Paradise Creek pushes oil along the ICW today; when I started this blog,  it was a regular workhorse in the sixth boro of NYC.

The color of ICW water is determined by natural tannins.

The ICW is composed of wide open bays and sounds–which have narrow channels-as well as narrow cuts.   Here Evelyn Doris of the ICM fleet pushes a covered barge–soybeans, I’ll wager–northbound, possibly to Norfolk.

Ahead is the US Rte 64 Bridge over the Alligator River, a swing bridge.

Note the proximity of the photo above to the Atlantic Ocean.

Tannins in the Alligator River water create this color.

North Carolina today protects a lot of its coastal wetlands. Hunting is permitted, and in fact, VHF radio picked up a lot of communication with folks hunting in there.

Parts of the ICW flow through cuts like the Alligator-Pungo Canal.

This moment of arrival in Belhaven meant a lot to me, because just around the point in the center of the photo is the hospital where I was born. I hadn’t known it, but Belhaven also considers itself the birthplace of the ICW.

Departure time on day 3 was 0600, Jupiter and Venus were higher in the sky than the rising sun.

Aurora Mine looms over the Pamlico river. Potash export happens through Beaufort,  documented on tugster here and here a few years back.

See the mine area on the south side of the Pamlico River below.

Hunting abounds here.

Note the spelling. 

Belhaven used to support a fishing fleet.  I’ve no idea how the size of the fleet and market in Hobucken has fluctuated over the years.

Day 3, early afternoon we depart the Neuse River for the Trent by passing through the Cunningham Drawbridge.

Tortuga is docked here for winter.

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp.  Again many thanks to the USMMA Sailing Foundation for inviting me to crew in winter relocation for Tortuga.

270 nmi to Rendezvous with Kings Pointer

This is day 8 of the GHP&W series, so let me break pattern a bit.  If you missed the beginning, GHP&W is not a law firm; it’s abbrev for “gunk holes, harbors, ports, and wharves.”  I haven’t dusted off any wharves yet, but two-thirds of the months still lie ahead.

The story here is that TS Kings Pointer was out serving as a training platform and not at Kings Point, although there was a potential meeting somewhere south along our track to Portsmouth, VA.

Mile 1, 0738 Wednesday, heading for the Throg’s Neck Bridge.

0756.  Passing SUNY Maritime and TS Empire State. Click here for photos from her summer sea term 2015.

0804, Robert Burton, a Norfolk boat.

0907, Mary Gellatly with a sand scow at the southern tip of Governors Island.

1010, passing the northern tip of Sandy Hook but looking back at Naval Weapons Station Earle, with USNS Medgar Evers at the wharf.

1017, Romer Shoal Light and Coney Island.

1517, Capt. Willie Landers northbound off Beach Haven, I think.

1612, FV Jonathan Ryan and tug Pops in the distance.

1618, entering a grid marked “numerous scientific buoys.”

1657 off Atlantic City, with unidentified tug and barge

1740 and about to switch watch.

Thursday, 0852, looking north into the Chesapeake after going wide around Fisherman Island.

0910 . . . it’s the current  TS Kings Pointer, ex-Liberty Star. . .

 

. . . heading along Virginia Beach

before turning northward toward Long Island Sound.  Her former sister ship–Freedom Star–was in the area but we did not see her.

Meanwhile, we head north into the Thimble Shoal Channel Tunnel and into port, which you can follow tomorrow.  And that tug and crane barge in the distance . . . survey work for new infrastructure or maintenance dredging?

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp, with thanks to the USMMA Sailing Foundation for inviting me to crew in winter relocation for Tortuga.  It was a smooth trip.