Ships at Sea

We had terrible weather last week. Please save your "at least you didn't get two inches of snow" stories. We are talking four days straight of gale force winds rocking my home here people! I opened the window once to take a photo of the sea and it felt like I was being punched in the face by an invisible man. I didn't get much sleep last week and now that the weather has calmed down I am finally catching up on sleep and getting back to normal so this is going to be a shorter post than usual. Also I am making oven baked fish and chips at the moment so when the timer goes off I am done writing.

This week I spent a lot of time watching the ships coming in and out of Teesport. I have noticed over this past week that some of the larger vessels, tankers specifically, have been met by an escort of tug boats. I don't see this a lot, the tugs operate mostly just on the river when the ships have already pulled into the mouth. The last time I saw tugs actually come out into the sea to meet a ship was when Le Clemenceau was towed in, but I have seen it twice this week. There a few reasons I can think of, one being that with many environmentalists' scopes trained on Teesport just waiting for the tiniest slip up at the docks they are being especially careful about any vessels coming in that are carrying any type of hazardous material. 

Anyway, back to the topic. When I saw one of these ships being towed in I was curious about it, and I could read the name on the side so naturally I Googled it. Then I found this great website where I can track all of the marine traffic coming in and out of Teesport.

www.marinetraffic.com

This map is powered by Google Maps so you can zoom in and out and explore just like on Google Maps. If you click on any of the colored markers it will show you all kinds of details about the vessel. Its been fun looking out my window with my binoculars and checking out the different ships coming in and out of the port. Well, fish and chips are done. Thats all I've got for this week! The TV review series will definitely be back next week.