Left the grocery store ann noticed the bridge of a ship behind Safeway.
I definitely had to check that out.
I drove a couple 10th of a mile along the main drag and parked.
I got out, walked across the railroad tracks and over to the public walkway by the bay.
One of the larger tugs and a second one we're turning a ship around to dock it.
This is the very end of the Bay. There hasn't been a ship dock there for 5 years I'll bet because nothing's happening there.
Anyway it was a bit unusual so I sat there and watched for a while.
I need to do some investigation because I have no clue what they're loading on to this ship. There's less than 600 ft long and the only thing on that dock is a conveyor system.
The stock used to load lumber on the ships, 2x4s 4x4s 6x6s 10x12s everything. The lumber mill and the loading facility has been there for 50, 60, 80 years ..... I don't know.
That facility closed doors and a nickel ore mining facility begin operating at this location because of a large supply of nickel ore from about 80 mi away.
The nickel market went away so that place closed.
Another company built a large concrete silo to dry silica sand near one of the local beaches 30 miles away. They separated the silica from the garnet from whatever else is in the sand and sold those materials in bulk.
I took a couple years to get the facility up and operation but then I don't think that lasted a year before it closed down.
I'm curious as to why the ship is being docked at this location.
It's an unusual ship because the bow goes straight down, no angle whatsoever. Just because I ship has cranes on it like this one does doesn't going to mean no cranes are going to be used. The cranes can offload the hatches, then the cranes swing out of the way and materials such as grain, gravel, cement, you name it can be poured into the holds of the ship. Ships are multi-purpose.
Anyway I tried to shrink this video down and we'll see if it works.
The two tow boats are in the process of spinning the ship 180° and then pushing it towards the dock. It's an extremely quiet and relaxing process to watch one of these large vessels get moved and positioned. The tugboats make virtually no sound at all until they live their engines up but still it's very muffled and a soothing sound.
The ship makes no sound at all.
It's kind of fun watching something relatively close and relatively large being moved around with such ease and precision.
When I say precision, I'm speaking of two tow boats pushing a 600 foot long ship towards a dock without damaging the ship or the dock. Just fun to watch and you sometimes have to be in the right place at the right time to know that it's going to happen. Tonight was one of those nights.
Now the burning question to me is why after all these years are they docking a ship this particular dock.
Hell maybe it's a load of hemp.
I mean, this is Oregon