How to Social Distance

The Lonian in Seattle.

Lonian Yacht
at anchor, Seattle, WA, USA
July 12, 2020

This is a little bit unusual. I don't often see the larger private yachts at anchor right out by the Marina. I have seen them docked INSIDE the Marina a few times. I wonder if they are anchored out due to health restrictions.

Lonian position via MarineTraffic on July 12, 2020

Via Google:

Lonian yacht

Featured snippet from the web

Lonian Yacht. The 87m Lonian yacht was built in 2018 by Feadship. She features an exterior design by Sinot Yacht Architecture & Design and an interior by Richard Hallberg Interior Design and Sinot Yacht Architecture & Design . She can sleep up to 12 guests taken care of by a crew of 27.

Gross tonnage: 2691

Beam: 13.8m (45'3")

The "little boaters" like to cruise by slowly.

This is a nice way to "social distance" if you can afford it. Clearly, I cannot. Note the description above says "she can sleep up to 12 guests" but I'm fairly sure you can go alone, if you wish. 😎  I'm also a little curious about the expenses related to the crew of 27.

Even more photos and info HERE.

Recently in Seattle

A few images ... all taken from home ...

July 14, 2020  5:49 AM
UNUSUAL - 2 Freighters in view in line.
Both are northbound.
The distant vessel departed Tacoma, WA earlier.
The near vessel departed Port of Seattle Freight Terminal
about 5 AM.

SM Line has an excellent website HERE.

July 14, 2020
I'm seeing SM Line Shipping vessels more frequently lately.
Based in Busan, South Korea, SM recently entered partnership
with 2M Alliance (Maersk, MSC)
This view is looking almost due west from home.
Olympic Mountains in the distance.
The nearest land beyond the ship is Bainbridge Island, WA

For those of you who are new to John's Island here's a brief intro:  I've been blogging for about 10 years now. This blog is a sort of digital journal for me. I enjoy photography and using it to capture images so I can keep a record of interesting things I've seen and places I've visited. I also enjoy watching all the maritime activity out on Puget Sound, part of the waterway that connects Seattle to the Pacific Ocean. The Elliott Bay part of Puget Sound is right out my front window. My favorite photo subjects are big ships, nature scenes, and especially the ever changing skies.

March 5, 2020
NYK Line arriving

It is unusual for a container ship to anchor overnight out by the Marina. They usually go directly to the freight terminal for unloading and loading.

Night and Day
May 29, 2020
Left ... 4:43 AM
Right ... 5:50 AM
NYK Line freighter at anchor near Elliott Bay Marina

Mixed maritime ...

COSCO freighter arriving.
Bulk carrier anchored ... to the right.
Elliott Bay Marina at bottom ... 1000+ sailboats
July 3, 2020

Some ships still departing with a fairly good load of containers.

March 14, 2020

While the water has been rough at times, the skies continue to be beautiful at times as well.

February 29, 2020

March 7, 2020

March 8, 2020

Caught a great LIGHT PILLAR on March 14th

March 14, 2020
6:58 PM - Almost due west from home.

I put up a feeder for the hummingbirds. Love watching these little birds!

July 3, 2020

I know some will fault me for catching them at the feeder ...
it is pretty easy. But these little birds are fast.
I Googled "how fast hummingbirds can fly" and got 49 MPH. Wow!

Half Way

Editorial Notes

I gave this post the title, Half Way, referring to the fact that we’re now a little more than half way through 2020. In the ten years I’ve been blogging I’ve averaged about 80 posts-a-year. So far, this year has been below average. I’ll attribute that partially to the pandemic, because, instead of digitally posting here on the blog, I've been keeping a written journal documenting the evolving story of Covid-19 as seen through the eyes of one living in Seattle, where the first case of the virus was discovered. I've been tracking the numbers globally, for the USA, and for Washington State, on a daily basis, via the Coronavirus COVID-19 Dashboard from John Hopkins University. The stuff I normally blog about hasn’t really changed much. I’m still watching the ships come and go, enjoying the maritime activity out there in Puget Sound, watching the ever-changing skies, reading and listening to books, watching a few videos, and trying to keep all my devices charged and up-to-date with the latest software.

I recall watching the evening news on Tuesday, January 21, 2020, and hearing about the first case of Wuhan coronavirus being discovered here in Washington State ... virtually in my backyard. (Watch that newscast HERE) In just a few days 6 months will have passed and Covid-19 has turned out to be much worse than I initially anticipated. Sadly, the response of the United States Federal Government has been pathetic. The same is true for some of the States. I expect things to get worse before getting better.  

In my last post I asked those who wanted to leave a comment to tell me how they were doing and contending with the pandemic. It was great to hear from so many about how things have been going for them. So, I hope that will happen again. Tell me how you are. I'm much more interested in how you are doing than in kudos for John's Island. It really seems like Covid-19 is affecting everyone in some way or another. As for me, it mostly means wearing a mask when out in public, using a lot of hand sanitizer, and keeping my social distance when appropriate. I don’t really like wearing a mask but I do it, not so much to keep me safe, but to set a good example and hope others will wear a mask. I know that my greatest chance of getting infected is from someone, who may be asymptomatic and not even know they’re sick, who is not wearing a mask and, in some way, gets close enough to me to spread the dreaded virus.

The thing I'm missing most, this year, is not being able to get out on the ocean on a big ship. The first photo above is one of my favorite shots from a cruise last fall. Every day on that cruise I walked 3 miles on the promenade deck ... around and around ... one time around the ship was a quarter mile. I recall stopping to snap that photo as we were nearing a port in Mexico.

In the coming days I'll be publishing some posts that have been "in the works" for a while. The usual ships and skies stuff ... and a few new discoveries as well. A couple of typical scenes are below.

Dramatic sunset February 29

Freighter ships have been coming and going with substantially reduced amount of cargo. I think I really started to notice the difference in March. Is it Coronavirus related? I don't know.

March 11, 2020
Hapag-Lloyd arriving with exceptionally small number of containers.

Better late than never ...

I'm closing with a tribute I intended to publish on July 4th.

From my postcard collection ...
Two Beauties
Postmarked 1906
Happy Birthday America

Steady As She Goes

For you new visitors to John's Island here is the story ... I love watching ships, mostly big ships, come and go here in Seattle, where the view from home gives me a pretty good spot to watch and snap a few pictures of the maritime activity. In this post I'm including a bunch of photos I've taken over the past few weeks.

In the photo above, note the fuel barge, with attending tug, in the middle left. This is a new fascination for me. These fuel barges have been anchoring right beyond Elliott Bay Marina. Some days there have been 3 combinations (barge and tug) and other days just one. As one leaves another takes it place and may be anchored for several days at a time. Over several years I haven't seen this until the last few weeks. I have a hunch that it has something to do with the current global oil glut. Storage space for oil has been almost maxed out. So, perhaps they are filling up the barges and then placing them down here by the port of Seattle for ready access to the big freighter ships as need requires. The oil supply depot is north of Seattle. One of the things that fascinates me about this is the crew on the tug will be there for days at a time without pulling anchor and moving. So they must have to find activities to fend off the boredom just like those of us here in the city while on "stay home" orders.

If I was in charge of this tug I would be tempted to spend a lot of time
viewing everything from that upper level bridge.

A hazy morning.
It seems like the heavy freighters like to depart early in the mornings.

ZIM freighter arriving in Seattle

A "Ro-Ro" (Roll on -- Roll off) Vehicle carrier headed to Tacoma,
south of Seattle.

A rather unusual construction barge.
Maritime construction is expensive!

USS Nimitz, Supercarrier, headed north out of Puget Sound.
There is no way to know when to be watching for these ships to go by.
You just have to be ready with the camera.
To give a sense of scale, this ship is about 4 miles from my viewing point.

Love stuff like this ... a (relatively) small tug pulling two barges of
shipping containers. May be going to Alaska ... not sure.

OOCL freighter heading out of port.

COSCO shipping headed north.
Elliott Bay Marina (mostly sailboats) at bottom.

1. Big Hapag-Lloyd container ship headed north (to the Pacific Ocean probably)
2. One of the anchored fuel barges and attendant tug
3. A fairly typical sized sailboat
4. 100s of boats in the Marina

In the middle ... a tug with two gravel barges
Below that ... a ship anchored, waiting to pick up a load of grain from the terminal.

MOL freighter headed north on a sweet beautiful afternoon.

The same bulk carrier as seen two photos above.
The ship is being guided to the grain terminal by two tugs.

Tug pulling a strange looking barge. Not sure what this is for.

Matson freighter headed north on a fine day.

Tug and two barges of containers headed to Alaska.
The colors of the containers gives away they are a part of
Alaska Maritime Shipping. Note closer look in next pics.

Note the left side of the barge, top level.
Those are a bunch of new fishing boats.
Close up below.

A bunch of brand new fishing boats headed to Alaska.

 A few non-maritime pics ...

Para-sailing on a fine windy afternoon.
In the distance ... Bainbridge Island

Nothing special ... just liked the light on the Olympic Mountains

Colorful sunset.

Full moon setting early in the morning.
The neighborhood in the near distance is known as Magnolia.

Editorial notes ...

I decided to entitle this post "Steady As She Goes" since that is exactly what's been happening here at my place since about the end of February when our Washington Governor declaired a State of Emergency. On February 29th the first death (known at that time) from Covid-19 occurred here in Washington.

Without doubt, the last two months have been the most unusual in my life time, in several ways. Fortunately, we, here in Washington, adopted procedures to stay safe from the virus well before the Misleader At The Top was saying Covid-19 would miraclously go away in a few days. For USA that was about 80,000 deaths ago.

During this time I haven't been in the mood to post much here on the blog. I've been reading a lot. The best book I've read was Endurance, by Alfred Lansing, which even has a maritime element to it. Briefly: In August 1914, polar explorer Ernest Shackleton boarded the Endurance and set sail for Antarctica, where he planned to cross the last uncharted continent on foot. In January 1915, after battling its way through a thousand miles of pack ice and only a day's sail short of its destination, the Endurance became locked in an island of ice.Thus began the legendary ordeal of Shackleton and his crew of twenty-seven men. When their ship was finally crushed between two ice floes, they attempted a near-impossible journey over 850 miles of the South Atlantic's heaviest seas to the closest outpost of civilization.

I've also been working on a couple of 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles. I have listened to a bunch of podcasts. My favorite podcast is The Daily from the New York Times. And, as you can see, when the time is right I've been getting out on my deck to snap pictures.

Now, if you are still reading this, you are amazing! Anyway, here is my request if you are considering leaving a comment. Do tell me how you've been doing and how you are getting along during the Covid Crisis. Here's wishing all of you wellness and safety! Thanks for stopping by John's Island.