Out With the Freighters in With the Destroyer

Normally we have car freighters and cruise ships coming and going at the docks next to us.  It's pretty cool to watch them and see how the tugs push them around and up to the docks. They're too big to maneuver in those close quarters without (usually) two tug boats to help guide them into the right position.  They are just so incredibly massive and they come so close that it looks like they're going to crash into the docks.  I definitely would not want to be that close to one if I was in my boat. Their props are very deep and they cause a lot of suction behind them. They also could run a little sailboat over without even knowing they hit anything.

Car Freighter Heading up the River

As I said, they are car, not cargo freighters.  All of the cars go inside (obviously) and not on top like cargo freighters.  It seems to always be BMWs that they are shuttling off and on here.  They drive them right onto the boat up a ramp on the stern.  They keep the cars in a large parking lot next to our marina but unfortunately, they never leave the gate open.  I don't know how many cars they can fit in there, but I think it must be several hundred. I wonder if one of these has ever sunk, can you imagine hundreds of brand new BMWs at the bottom of the ocean? Well, right after I wrote that I decided to look it up;  they have sunk (no surprise) and they can carry several thousand vehicles, check out this article. Basically it says, a freighter sank in a busy shipping channel and it was so large that to salvage it, they had to slice it into pieces before lifting it out. Nearly 3000 new volvos, saabs and BMWs were sent to the scrap yard, at about a total loss of about $100 million.  I bet that captain's career is over.

Now though, they have moved the freighters up the river and the docks next to us have been clear until yesterday, when we got an new, bigger neighbor, the navy destroyer Farragut.  The tugs helped push them alongside while the sheriff boat kept a watch to make sure no one came too close. 

It is actually a missile-guided destroyer and has been fighting pirates in the Gulf of Aden. 
Here's a patrol boat keeping a 24/7  watch around the Farragut. Check out the machine gun on the bow.  We don't know why they're here or how long they'll be around, but we think it's pretty cool.

An Armed Dinghy