PenguinSix

The COMFORT is on station off the coast, as you’ll see from this Navy photo just released.

 
 
For those in the Annapolis area (and who can see through this bit of fog we have on the Bay today), you might be able to catch a glimpse of the USNS COMFORT hospital ship on its way to Haiti sometime around 11:30. Good viewing points in Sandy Point State Park, the Bay Bridge, or [...]

Hurricane / TS / TD / Rain from Ida is making waves in the backyard.  Actually quite a bit higher than this photo earlier.

The Hoegh Traveller is passing by the house at this moment.  Not really sure what is inside.  It’s supposed to be cars, but who is going to buy them?
As I’ve mentioned, the backlog in worldwide shipping is noticeable here on the Bay with dozens of ships parked in the Annapolis anchorage with nothing better to [...]

Everyone talks the talk about accountability.  I’m looking today at some guy stepping down because Air Force One freaked out a bunch of New Yorkers.  But Gene Kranz is a guy who has walked the walk.  I was doing a bit of Googling tonight came across this quote following the disaster of Apollo 1.  Just [...]

Ok, I’m not sure what this is.  It’s military grey, and it looks like it has the MSC ‘rainbow’ on the back stack (hard to tell because of the fog).  But the outline doesn’t match any USNS ships that I can see on the USNS poster, so I’m at a bit of a loss.

Really cool video here:

More details:
The first half begins just below the Port of Houston Authority Turning Basin (the very end of the channel) and continues down to Green’s Bayou. The second half takes us from there to Morgan’s Point at the head of Galveston Bay. From there we still have 31.5 miles of channel across [...]

 
Well hell. It’s grey and cloudy here but if it clears up by tonight you might want to head to somewhere with a good Eastern view (think the Western Shore of Maryland, Annapolis, etc) to catch a glimpse of a big Minotaur rocket going up from Wallops Island, VA
http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2009/05/nasa-will-try-to-launch-a-rocket-in-virginia-tonight-watch-it-with-your-kids/
These things are pretty visible for [...]

You read about in my blog three weeks ago. Too many cars on the water.
Now the local papers are writing about it. Recession Leads to Backup at Local Anchorage.
Glad I don’t subscribe to a newspaper that tells me what I can already see outside my window.

Floating parking lot full of new cars?

For the last few weeks, I’ve noticed up to the north a couple of RO-RO ships sitting in the Annapolis Anchorage (a deep water anchorage where ships often wait for room on the Baltimore dock to free up before heading to port). I can rarely make out ships [...]

I’m still coughing.
Was putting the kids to sleep and he was just about down when the wife screamed for me. I ran out of bed and looked out the window but all I could see in the front yard was thick grey smoke, so thick it activated the motion detector lights. She said [...]

Looking out over the Bay tonight was quite pretty as we had some clear skies and a rather large moon rising. But then I noticed this really bright light about 9:00 PM that wasn’t usually there (the other side of the Bay is rather desolate–I can often count the number of lights I see [...]

Ro ro past the window where will you go?

Military Sealift Command has a number of ships up in Baltimore that you can see anytime you drive through the city. But it’s actually quite rare to see them afloat, unless you are off the coast of Iraq or some other trouble spot.

Today the USNS Mendonca, [...]

Couple interesting vessels today. The first was a destroyer leaving Annapolis and making its way back toward Norfolk. Turns out it was the USS Cole, famous from the attack in Yemen a few years back. It was in Annapolis for the homecoming game (which Navy lost miserably to Pitt).

The second [...]