Cubes & Spheres

click on pix to enlarge and see the cubes better

Holy Saturday, we went for a bike ride around the Kill van Kull & Newark Bay. The ship traffic was very heavy that morning. If you've ever wondered exactly how all that stuff gets from China and into your house, take a look at these container vessels. And if you want to know where exactly those vessels go after they pass under the Verrazano and disappear out to sea, you should check out this fascinating website. It is a live feed so you can actually identify and follow a boat you have seen. My mariner brother tells me:

Post 911 all ship of class size have to have a transponder on it, Big Brother u know. That includes large pleasure yachts.The system actually works real well cause theyre profile show's up on the radar screen while underway and tells u the ship, it's direction, size and flag of origin. This is very helpful when navigating in close quarters and need to hail some one on the radio, you at least know who your talking too.Unfortunately this system only work's when dealing with civilized countrys, It also help in the recovery of hijacked ships. It's kinda like LOJACK for the water.

Just think back to the days when Bon Papa [our grandfather] was carring a huge box camera in a balloon or plane to take plate photo's for the Belgian armymaps during the 1st war. Well sattellite has got looking into your back yard down to a science to the point where they could tell you what flowers you have growing in it.

This ship the Ludovica (below), had just made the turn from her berth into Newark Bay and was heading south toward the Kill van Kull.

We got on our bikes and rode down to the park at the bottom of Bayonne in time to see her passing under the Bayonne Bridge and into the Kill. A guy there told me that this ship is too big to go through Panama, that she can carry 6,000 containers and she plies the China trade via Suez. We managed to keep her in sight all the way out of the Harbor. There was still fog obscuring the towers of the Verrazzano as she headed into open water. 

Here's a screen shot of the Ludovica's passage. She's the green boat at the very bottom.

And now for something completely different: benzene tanks.

 HAPPY EASTER!