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Leaving the Mississippi
2008-10-04 14:09:00
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.
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Ship art on the Stena Poseidon
2008-10-03 05:28:00
   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...
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Mississippi River
2008-10-02 05:03:00
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 eveni...
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Sunset off Mississippi Delta
2008-10-01 02:22:00
   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.       
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Sorrounded by Sharks
2008-09-20 05:03:00
As we lay anchored off Pascagoula, we were surrounded by Shark s. 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"
2008-09-18 02:59:00
          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 th...
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USCG 559
2008-09-15 00:42:00
      Everytime a hurricane comes out, it screws up everything out at sea as well as the damage it does out on the land. During the hurricane Gustav that passed through a few days back, all the approach channel buoys of the port of Pascagoula were washed off. These buoys are anchored to the sea bed and can be dragged off position in strong winds and swell.   It is the job of ships like the above US coastguard vessel to get those buoys back in place. You can see a couple of buoys lying on their decks, which they were probably carrying incase a few of the buoys might have been lost.   These guys did a stellar job in getting things moving when Gustav passed through and they are going just as good a job now that Ike has gone by.

NOAA Vessel Pisces at Pascagoula
2008-09-12 17:38:00
   Few mariners on the US coast will have anything disparaging to say about the NOAA. I have always been a fan of the organization, and am especially grateful to them for the invaluable assistance they give us during the current situations such as the Hurricanes. So I was especially pleased to spot on the horizon, a ship with the markings of the NOAA. A couple of posts back, I had put up a picture of an oil platform in the US gulf. The picture above is of the research vessel, "Pisces " as it is passing that same oil platform. The Pisces was launched on 19th Dec 2007, and if the launch page is to be believed, she was going to begin operations in Late of 2008. So it is quite possible that I captured her on one of her first voyages out to sea. Do look at the video of the launch that I found on Youtube, which is amazing to watch.     The Pisces is one of the four ships to be launched in Pascagoula that is supposed to be a quite ship, which improves the resear...

Big Bad Ike
2008-09-12 12:03:00
  "Big bad Ike" is what the media in US is calling the lastest hurricane to hit their shores. After dubbing Gustav as the mother of all storms, one would have thought that the granny wouldn't show up the next week, but that is pretty much what has turned out to be.   The problem with Ike is that even though it is still a force 2 Hurrican, it is one monstrous system. If you look at satellite picture of Ike, you will see it witha footprint all over the US gulf. When we got Gustav a few days back, the gale force winds were forcasted within a distance of 160 miles from the eye. With Ike, the figure is 250 miles, which is actually 500 Km. Our ship is atpresent more then 300 miles form the eye, but we are bobbing around worse than a cork in a bathtub.   But then there are worse places we could be right now. At the storm centre, there are actually waves of 35 feet rising up as we speak. Picture six storied buildings crashing all around you.  

Seagulls
2008-09-12 00:09:00
.  Right now I am hanging on to my ship as we are being banged around by Ike, so this is a good time to remember the good weather gone by and yet to come. The above picture is from the Port of Pascagoula when an unusually large number of Seagulls were foraging around in the wake of the ship. Its usual to see these trailing behind trawlers as they scoure the waters, but seeing them swooping around our stern was a welcome change.    . 

Stolt Concept at Freeport
2008-09-10 00:40:00
I had put up a post about Freeport , Texas and the way it was a sleepy little town. This place really is one of the biggest thing going for the town. Pictured above is the Stolt Concept , moored at the Jetty of the Dow Chemical plant at Freeport.   I haven't personallt sailed in Chemical tankers myself, but the ship above is as big as a chemical carrier is going to get. The Concept is 177 m long and has a beam of 31 m. The Ship was built in 1999 and operated under the Liberian flag untill 2000.   As I said earlier, the complex of piping in the background is the Dow chemical plant. The pilo told me that when he had first started working at Freeport, a total of forty thousand people used to enter the gates of this chemical plant everyday. The number sadly has decreased to about nine thousand these days.   Absolutely Unrelated and irrelevant Titbit - Dow Chemical was the sole supplier of Napalm to the US Military during the Vietnam war.    

Ike is here
2008-09-09 20:09:00
. I think the one thing that is stopping people from talking too much about Ike is figuring out how to pronounce it. But seriously, with one hurricane following another, one gets tired of the whole show. The season has barely started and we are on to the 9th hurricane and now we are already hearing of the Josephine following Ike. And the scary thing is that the season actually ends in October. Well anyway, Ike enters the US gulf sometime later in the night, and is expected to make land-fall sometime over the weekend in Texas or near the Mexican border. Thankfully I should be floating around far away from the path of Ike to not be bothered too much.  Will keep you all updated.

Oil Platforms
2008-09-06 18:33:00
..The US coast all along the GUlf of Mexico is dotted with oil Platforms and installations that pump oil back to the shore along a vast grid of underwater pipeline network. Pictured above is one of the bigger oil platforms to be seen out here. .As you can see out here, on the left of  the platform is the accomdation space and also visible if the Lifeboat for emergencies. When Gustav came, platforms like these were evacuated and are now coming back to normal status.  Also at the foot of the left pylon is a Supply boat. These supply boats are the work horses of the US Gulf and supply everything from stores to people to these rigs.  

Gustav - The sleep depriving giant
2008-08-31 17:09:00
.Location : US Gulf.It is surprising how Gustav seems to have filled up the whole of Gulf of Mexico. It sure is tough to get any sleep out here when this fellow is stomping all over the place. .
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Gustav - A determined Cuban
2008-08-31 02:07:00
Location : US Gulf .When you look at the cloud cover over the entire Earth, the hurricanes heading towards me seem rather small. Gustav is turning out to be one Determined Cuban on his way to the US. He leaves the Cuban Coast tonight and is forcasted to make Landfall on the Mississippi Delta sometime early on the 1st PM. Since we were pretty much on its way, we are running with all our speed. Lets just hope that the forcasters know what they are talking about. If this Cuban decides to join his cousins in Florida, its going to spoil a lot of dinners out here! .

Helicopter landings
2008-08-30 18:39:00
Location : The US Gulf The other day we had a helicopter land on the vessels heli deck. In the US Gulf, since its too cumbersome to send surveyors and charterers rep by launch for the Ship to ship ops, they usually fly them out of New Orleans. As the mothership was actually smaller then us and didn't have a Heli-deck, the chopper came over to us. A nice change from the ordinary. I had flown in one of these choppers a few years back and it was a wonderful feeling. Please note the small floats on the bottom stands of the chopper. As the pilot then had explained to me, "They make the chopper sink slower in case we ditch this baby."
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Gustav & Hanna - The Hurricane map
2008-08-30 05:43:00
Location : US Gulf CoastFrom where I'm sitting, this is one uncomfortable picture.  The above satellite imagery shows the whole of the US gulf and Atlantic area. The One on tip of Cuba is Gustav and more to the east is Hanna . Hanna is projected to die down a bit to "Tropical Storm" status over the next few days, but Gustav is slated to hit the Louisiana coast on the 1st PM or 2nd PM. Which should make my life uncomfortable sometime late on the 30th.
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Freeport and the Baptist church
2008-08-29 04:59:00
Location : The US Gulf when I heard for the first time that we were bound for Freeport , I had wild thoughts of waterskying in the Bahamas. Turns out that there is a Freeport in Texas as well. Its not somethig that really appeals at first glance. Searching for places of intrest only reveals one beach out there over which surf breaks only when hit by a grade three cyclone. which is coming by the way. But unless the high winds start blowing them away, the place is being ruled by huge gangs of Mosquitoes. I read in a Louis Lamour book that mosquitoes in Texas can actually kill a horse. The author might have been thinking of Freeport when he wrote that. But then this post is not about freeport, but about Religion. With every post I try to learn something new and for this post I am going to read something about the Baptist Church . The reason I'm reading up on the Baptist structure is because of the Seaman's centre that really is one of the best things going for the town. The places is...

Iron Manolis at Corpus Christi
2008-08-23 21:21:00
Location : Freeport , Texas I came across the Iron Manolis as she was loading her cargo of Grain at Corpus Christi. It is essentially a gearless bulk carrier. What that means is that it is a bulk carrier that doean't have any cranes or davits to handle any cargo. While this would mean that it would be a problem to handle this ship at small ports, if an owner is confident of his ships run, saving money on the cranes can pay out in the longer run. The Iron Manolis is a new ship with its keel laid out in 2005 and was launched in 2007. One interesting thing I learnt during research for the Iron Manolis was that it belongs to the Kamsarmax class of bulk carriers. It seems that Kamsarmax bulkcarriers are bulkcarriers of about 82000 DWT, and are basically Panamax bulkcarriers with an extended length. In the picture above, you can see the Iron Manolis at berth. All its seven hatches are closed and you can even see the head lines going from the bow of the vessel. A tug is tied up on...

Corpus Christi - A bridge and a ship
2008-08-23 04:16:00
Location : Freeport 28 48 N , 095 12 WI have been twice to Corpus Christi over the past few days and since I have been there a few times before this, Corpus Christi has become one of my most visited cities on the US Coast.This is the view from the bridge as you go into the city harbor. Right up front is the Corpus Christi Harbor bridge and to the right is the USS Lexington, now a Museum.The corpus Christi bridge is good going in, because we are loaded and so deep into the water. It is while coming out without cargo, when the clearance height of 138 Feet makes us dismantle our mast so that we can slip under it. A fact that always irritates me as I lose Sat C reception till the time the mast is put up again.The Construction of the Corpus Christi bridge was started in 1956 and it was inaugurated in 1959. Even now, at 243 feet, this is the second tallest bridge in Texas. Sadly because the yanks are still not happy with it, they are going to break it down and built a bigger bridge that w...
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Corpus Christi - The sinking ship
2008-08-21 09:39:00
Location : The Gulf Of MexicoSailing for over a decade, might lull you into thinking that you've pretty much seen everything that there is to see. But the other day when the ship went to Corpus Christi, I came across the above scene, and the first thing to cross my mind was a sympathetic thought for the brother captain of mine who must have been on that ship when it broke into two.But as it turned out a couple of days later, when I passed that way again, the vessel was floating happily around in its berth, with a huge oil rig strangely impaled on it. As it turned out, the vessel Talisman, is probably one of the handful of vessels built for the express purpose of transporting oil rigs. As per what I was told by the pilot, the vessel doesn't really break into two, but is in fact an submersible vessel that enables the main deck to sink some meters below the water. In the middle of the deck is a huge hole, like a well and it is in this hole over which the oil rig is bought over and pl...
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A recent Sunset
2008-08-19 00:10:00
Location : Gulf Of Mexico - 27 39 N, 095 11 W The last trip to Venezueal was a pity because they tied us up to an platform way off into the sea. But the sun that went down into those waters was beautiful. As it dipped down into the sea, it seemed to leave behind this river of molten clouds in its wake.
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Sunrise at sea
2008-08-15 05:04:00
Some days you wake up to the most stunning of sights in the morning that makes everything in the world worthwhile. This picture was though was not a recent one, but from the last ship. I promise myself not to go through old pictures but always fail at that. :)
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The Steaming decks
2008-08-08 23:31:00
Location : The Caribbean , 17 49 N 081 05 W I was going through some old snaps and wanted to show you a picture from one of my previous ship. Sometimes the oil that we carry needs to be heated. When we do this, the deck actually heats up. This night we were at anchor so the deck lights were all lit up and it rained. As the rain stopped, the water on the deck began to steam up. It sure was an spooky place to be on the deck that night. But ofcourse the ghosts on that ship were really nice folks. Maybe I'll tell you about them some other day.

The Statue Ferry ticket
2008-08-07 12:52:00
Location - The Caribbean , 14 03 N , 072 46 W   The last few days were busy, but didn't get much snap footage of Venezuela, so might as well fill some space with the statue. I wanted to show you the statue ferry ticket and the brochure on the statue that I picked up at the information centre.
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The statue of Liberty
2008-08-03 08:49:00
Location : The Caribbean ,  15 08 N , 066 33 E   Though it was fun to see the statue of Liberty from three miles, you do understand that the thrill wore off after two days of anchorage seeing it this way. So once we were tied up, we snuck off early in the morning to have a closer look at Lady liberty Early in the morning, she hadn't put on any make up and you can see the oxidation and the lines running down her face. Well she's been out there a long time so you can't really blame her for looking like that first thing in the morning.    
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New York - Liberty View
2008-08-01 11:54:00
Position : The Atlantic , 26 07 N / 069 58 W   As we came into Newyork, the day had dawned and we saw the statue of Liberty welcoming us as it must have been seen by the millions who came in with the immigration wave of the last century. We dropped anchor about 3 miles from the statue for our first cargo operations and this is the view of the statue from there.
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Off Gibralter
2008-07-22 16:04:00
Location : Gibralter - 38 37 N 062 46 W A few days back I had put up a screenshot of Gibralter with my ship a few miles south East of the rock. Here's a picture of the same area of the view from the ship In the background is Spain and at the foot of the rock are a few ships anchored and waiting for orders or bunkers.

Turkey - Classic steamer
2008-07-21 08:57:00
Location : The Atlantic - 37 40 N 055 20 W   This a a beautiful example of the small steamers that were seen about a century back. Add a couple of paddle wheels at the stern and you could very well be in New Orleans. The thing that puzzles me is that there were no identification marks on the vessel. No name, port of registry of any such thing. The thing looks in great shape, so it might actually be a new building which is being test driven around before the official launch.   But please do note the beautiful Wooden superstructure (hell to maintain) and Masts, the midship Engineroom , The L shaped Air ventilator for natural ventilation, Mahagony wooden lifeboats, Extensive halyard design , and ofcourse the gaint wheel at the conning position on the fore of the bridge.   One give away that it is a new construction is the presence of the two shankless anchors neatly attached at the ships bow. These anchors did not really become popular with ...
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Saracena at Skikda
2008-07-19 08:20:00
Location - The Atlantic - 36 37 N 043 31 W   The picture above is of M.T Saracena with the Algerian port of Skikda in the background. Saracena was ahead of us in line and went alongside to discharge there before us. Small tankers like Saracena criss cross all over the Med carrying small parcels of chemicals or products. One this which we can't see in the picture is that there are two funnels in the vessel, which meant that there are also toe associated engines and propellers. This gives the vessels such as Saracena great manouverability. In the background is the port of Skikda. On the right we see the breakwater and behind it the oil tanks spread all over the countryside. Also in the background are these aweful flares that keep spewing smoke all over the place. The three days that we were there, the town of Skikda was downwind and I can only wonder what they feel about these flares.     I like this particular picture because its got a rou...