The prognosis

The last few days haven't been good to us. Apart from the way things have
turned out on the ship, the weather's been doing its bit keeping us in a
gloomy mood. Todays weather report shows another cold front (the curved
lines with spikes) swooping down on the Texas coast, bringing with it,
another spell of fog, cold, showers and squally weather.

I guess the only thing to do is to batten down the hatches, turn into the
wind and ride out the winds.

Seabulk energy at Gaveston anchorage

 

Things are looking up today. The sun has come out and the fog seems to be dissipating. I can now actually see the mast and funnel of “Seabulk Energy” a mile off as the sun works on this fog from the top down. As I came down from the bridge, the pilots were opening up the Houston Ship channel and taking in the ships in.

 

I would be lying if I said that we weren’t enjoying the anchorage. But the problem with anchorages is that you can’t make fresh water and your provisions start running out. So it will be great if things start moving up in the channel and we can get some fresh veggies on our plates.

 

 

 

Cold, foggy and spanky in Houston !!

As might have been guessed, I am back on the ship and back in the same part
of the world, the US gulf. It's a part of the world that I am beginning to
like. The US gulf is a rather dull place. And dull things are something that
I am beginning to relish these days as a Captain. I go to ports I've been
to, I meet pilots I've met, I dock at berths I've docked at and even the CBP
(Customs and border patrol) personnel have begun to recognize me (heaven
forbid!).

So all in all it was a rude surprise when I came in to Galveston fairway
anchorage and met a wall of fog that everything more then 20 meters into
blankness. Fog is something god made strictly so that like minded people
could frolic in it over sloping hills and unending meadows. It was not made
to roll over into the sea and terrify you with fog horns blaring out at you
from all seeming directions. And it most certainly was not meant to be
rolling out over the US Gulf. Everyone seemed to be as disoriented as this
supply boat by the name of "Spanky" was going up and down the anchorage till
panicked duty officers would call out to it and warn of impending
collisions. Undetered, Sapnky would simply alter her course and go headlong
into the next ship that came up. Keeping as large an discance as I could
from that fellow and another madcap fishing vessel called Sea Angle, I
dropped anchor as early as I legally could.

The local weather reports are actually forcasting a worse cold front coming
down and freezing water pipes around the Houston greater area.

I do not like cold. I don't like fog and I don't think I like Spanky much
either.

Party time

Its an occasion for celebration and joy. I have signed off from my ship and its back to home for me. Years back, when contracts were longer and booze available, it would have been a pretty good excuse for a party like the above. Typically the mate would raise the topic of a farewell get-together with the old man over breakfast and instructions would be given to the catering department to get things ready. The crew would then meet in orderly groups at the pre-assigned time and talk urbanely about wide ranging pertinent topics such as the changing cup sizes of Pamela Anderson. The "get-together", would then steadily go downhill till the old man left for his cabin, after which people would be often be spotted in poses like the above, gyrating to lyrics of some pubescent girl , claiming to be a "Barbie Girl". This would go on till enough people were escorted to their cabins drunk, or the scene looked too gay for even seamen like us!

I'm not sure if I'm actually sad that these parties don't happen any longer. Now that I'm the old man, I realize that the poor sod might have been going off to his cabin, probably to offer a long prayer and prop himself at the porthole to keep a lookout for the rest of the night.

What I feet sad about is that I no longer have a twinge of sadness leaving behind friends with whom I have shared my life with so intensely for such long months. Instead there is only a sense of relief that the contract went off safely and without incidents / detentions / observations / accidents. What I feel sad is that the chap seeing me off at the Gangway isn't really thinking of me as he says his byes, but is probably offering a prayer that his contract goes off the same way.

Two balls and a diamond in between

We mariners have a nasty reputation of being perverts. Now we of coures have worked hard at deserving it so its not be be thrown away lightly. Which is why we keep hanging our balls out for all to see. Hanging from the halyards we see something called very imaginatively as  "shapes".

These shapes are used as required by the collision regulations to indicate that the vessel is "Restricted in her ability to Manouver" or "RAM". As I have been spending most of my evenings in the US gulf doing lightering operations. As a master, it feels inherently bad to wear these shapes on my halyards, because it means that I can't take my ships anyway I want to. Adn when your 200 meters plus vessel is manouvering at distances of 20 meters from a 300 meters long ship, the last this you want to do is go any closer. I find the manouvering for this fascinating because the dynamics of working such large vessels is amazing to watch unfold. Maybe we'll have beer one day and I'll explain the hydrodynamics on paper napkins.

In the meanwhile, observe the balls.

 

Sunset on the ship

 Now that its time to go back home, US Gulf seems to be saying goodbyes, by offering me stunning views. As I was doing my last lightering operation, we had a stunning display of colors on the horizon spread over the vista of smouldering oil rigs and installations.

 And a great good bye surprise - I shall be going up the beautiful Mississippi forone last time and signing off at New orleans. I haven't been to that city in a few years, so it'll be good to walk those streets.

Last of the bad guys - Marco

 

Tropical depression 13, has been thought worthy of a name and has been upgraded to Tropical storm  "Marco ".  Its been a tough year for the people of this part of the world, and even caused a few ulcers and sleepless nights to me and my pretty ship.

After being banged around by both Gustav and Ike, I am glad that the season is drawing to a close and hopefully Marco will be the last of the bad guys we see this year.

I should anyway be out of this area and back home, but I hope you all stay safe here.

Birds on a wire

  

 

A short post today. The picture above was taken at Pascagoula. Sights like these are quite common, but they always remind me of home where you'd see birds sitting on an electirc wire.

Included in the picuture from the bottom to top, is our ships crane, with the Markings SWL 15T, which refers to the safe works load, a smaller fendering davit, light post air pipes and bollards.

The Dredger - Glenn Edwards

The type of support vessels that come next in line to the Tugs in my "List if favotrite vessels" are the Dredgers. Pictured above is the Dredger Glenn Edwards, pictured above at the mouth of the Pascagouls Ship Channel in the Mississippi state. The Glenn Edwards was waiting for us to pass so that they could continue with their dredging works.

Glenn Edwards is a relatively new ship, floated in 2006 near here in Mobile Alabama. You can see a very informative article about it here at the workboat.com website. In it we are told of the extremely high standards of specifications that the vessel is built to.

The method of operation of dredgers like the Glenn Edwards are simple in principle. The boom that you see on the sides lower to the sea bed and act like a gaint Vaccume Cleaner, sucking in all manners of mud, small rocks and debries. These are deposited in the middle of the ship in their hold, from where the water is simply drained out. The dredger then makes its way to the dumping ground, where the bottom of the hold simply opens out, letting the whole of the load simply drop down.

Because the US coast is blessed with deep rivers and waterways, it is hard to spot too many of these vessels around here, but at the mouth of the Mississippi and in the channels of the US Gulf coast, these chaps keep digging away to allow people like us transit without too much heartburn.

Leaving the Mississippi

I'm leaving the Mississippi river today. Though I spent quite some time on this river during this voyage, thanks to some very slow loading, I do feel bad about getting out of here. In contrast to the whole of the US gulf, the Mississippi river is a beautiful place to be in. And in this time of the year, the dawns and dusks are serene. The river gently flows by and all manners of crafts make their way on it with grim determination.

Its immpossible to concieve that any type of music other then Jazz could have been born on the banks of this river.

Ship art on the Stena Poseidon

 

  

Its rare to see art or anything resembling it on the sides of Merchant ships.  So it was a treat to see what Stena Ice have done with their ships. I saw the Stena Poseidon in the Mississippi river where I assume she was loading cargo. From news reports on the net, the Poseidon, along with her sister ship, the Stena Palva, have been chartered for a period of 10 years to Neste oil, on a route from Finland to US carrying Low sulphur fuel oils. She is a new double hulled tanker (2007 Croatian built), that is actually registered in Finland currently.
 
  

 The Stena Poseidon seems to be of a fleet of ships of the Stenabulk that is certified for ice class. ABS has given the Poseidon the A1 class. You can check here on Wiki to get the basic outlay on Ice class ships. Also if you need to know some more about Ice Class ships and shipping in the cold, you really must have a look at this excellent paper written by Capt Duggal for the Nautical Institute .

  

 

 

 

This is how the the whole of the ship looks like, and you will admit that the whole effect looks rather pleasing. The picture of the polar bear looks neat and who knows - it might even have been designed as a deterrent to the Pirates! 

  

Links : Ship-Technology , bnet , 

Mississippi River

The Mississippi is a fabulous river. There is absolutely no question about that. It has been a few years since I came this way, and I really relish the opportunity to sail on it again. These are the same waters over which distinguished people like Mark Twain actually piloted ships.

It is common Knowledge that Mark Twain actually selected that pen name because in his days of piloting the Mississippi, two fathoms was the established safe depth of water. So seamen would mark two fathoms ( mark Twain) with their lead to establish safe navigation.

In the picture above, you can see a tug pushing a few barges of coal down river. In the picture is the Cantilever bridge for New Orleans. and to the right of the picture, you can actually see a bit of the New Orleans city.

Along with the Mississippi, Bhramaputra, Ganga and the Nile, I have sailed, boated, immersed myself or atleast seen almost all the major rivers in the world. The only one I have yet to go up is the Amazon. Maybe later.

The evenings are spent looking at the gentle flow of the river as is passes us by and the easy flow of traffic along its waters. Its hard not to wonder how lucky America is to be blessed with such wide and bountiful lands and waters.

Sunset off Mississippi Delta

 

  

The days are fully packed these days. The fact is that I am preparing th get off the ship and this means not only extra work to get things in shape for next guy, but also a lethargic attitude in getting to posting long blogs. 

  

So  till the time I get off, I think I'll focus on smaller posts for the time being. This above picture was taken during a stunning sunset off the Mississippi Delta. Its rare to see ships of this vintage and with derricks such as these. 

  

  

 

Sorrounded by Sharks

As we lay anchored off Pascagoula, we were surrounded by Sharks. These were young ones and were only about a feet plus in length. Its rather rare to see these creatures out at sea, because unlike Dolphins and Whales, these don't come out of the water and so are very hard to spot from a moving cargo ship.

But luckily as we were at anchor and the water was very clear, we could spot these chaps as they swam all around us. As you can see there were many of them all around and I manged to count as many as 14 of them at a time. As far as I can Identify, they seem to be the Atlantic Sharpnose Shark, which is also found in good numbers in the Gulf of Mexico.

I read out here that a huge gathering of whale sharks are taking place off the coast of Mississippi and Louisiana. Since I am around these waters, it would be really neat to get a sight of these chaps as well.

Links : Sharks In Wiki, Shark Species ,

Fishing Vessel " Angie baby"

     

 
 
The above picture was taken on a beautiful day at Freeport, Texas, when my ship had gone there. By habit, I put everyone of such vessels that catch fish as fishing vessels. Out here in the US Gulf, they are called the "Shrimp boats".

The Angie Baby pictured above was trawling in the waters of the inner channel and the dog on the deck was exibiting a calm detachment that would have made any dog proud.

When I think of shrimp boats, I am invariably reminded of "Forrest Gump" and his shrimp boat. As a matter of trivia, reported on this website, the shrimp boat used in that movie is moored in the moat at Planet Hollywood restaurant in Disneyworld resort in Florida.

The above picture was ofcourse taken before either hurricanes Gustav and Ike. As I write this, the port of Freeport is closed and most of the Nav aids to the port have been washed out.  Boats that small can't head out to sea like us to ride out the storm, and are rather at the mercy of the tidal surge and winds. I can only hope that Angie Baby fared well.