Send off to Old Man Winter
/Is shipboard life romantic? You decide. Here's some of life on Pier 9B since late December.
Below is a video from the Christmas blizzard where Carolina and her brother Antonio get ready to put out another bow line due to 50mph winds whipping around the end of the shed and hitting the bow. A few hours later, the winds were pushing the ship so far off the pier, they decided to raise the gangway on the boom so the gangway didn't come off the pier. We've kept the gangway rigged to the boom, which has allowed us to raise it and protect it from wake damage at high tide. This has given the office crew an athletic interactive feature they use several times a day, and Chiclet has become expert at catapulting herself off it at high tide.
In order to spring the spring that has not sprung, we offer this tribute to Old Man Winter on what he does for us on the Mary A. Whalen!
Block the view
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| Have us go for salt from the pile |
| Prevent office staff getting carpal tunnel by having regular shoveling breaks. Here, Dan Goncharoff demonstrates excellent shovel technique. |
| Provide opportunity for Smoke 101, or How to Use the Damper, a short intensive class for Stephanie Ortiz, our planning intern from Puerto Rico. |
| Beat up on the gangway chainfall until it snags, kinks and chokes and needs rescue lubrication. Thank you ASI for sending this forklift 12 minutes after the request! |
Oblige us to call Rich Naruszewicz of the Captain Log for diesel fuel deliveries to run the galley stove. Like the mail boat, he comes with sea stories (Brownwater Edition) new and old (he used to be a tankerman on the Mary A. Whalen).
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| Set off the ship colors so nicely |
| Make lovely patterns, such as this March snow where the frames under the deck, warmed by the sun the day before, are still warm enough to melt the damp coating of an early morning. |