Yesterday morning on my way into work, while crossing the Thames River, I noticed something odd to the south. No, not the usual submarine or cargo vessel, but rather a tug spraying water into the air – like a nautical welcome. Running alongside of the tug was a rather large ship – not as large as the Explorer of the Seas that visits New London every so often. With my curiosity piqued, I decided to take Thames Street into work today & check things out.
My first stop was the parking lot south of the Thames River drawbridge. Not able to see anything – apparently the ship was south of here – I decided to head further south to the Garbo Lobster parking lot. But just as I was climbing in the car, I heard an Amtrak roll onto the Thames River drawbridge. So of course, I had to get a shot…
[cpg_imagefixthumb:7968]Then I got into the car and headed south.
Pulling into the parking lot near Garbo Lobster, I got a nice view of the ship National Geographic Explorer heading north in the Thames River. Doing a bit of research this morning, Lindblad Expeditions offers cruises on the Explorer around the US. This particular one was a tour of the Canadian Maritimes & coastal New England (info here). So of course I got a few shots of her making her way to the State Pier in New London. The one interesting thing is that she didn’t require tugs to move to the pier. Here’s all the shots I got of the Explorer, the tug & the usual USCG escort heading north.
[cpg_imagefixthumb:7967] [cpg_imagefixthumb:7966] [cpg_imagefixthumb:7965] [cpg_imagefixthumb:7964] [cpg_imagefixthumb:7963] [cpg_imagefixthumb:7962] [cpg_imagefixthumb:7961] [cpg_imagefixthumb:7960] [cpg_imagefixthumb:7959] [cpg_imagefixthumb:7958] [cpg_imagefixthumb:7957] [cpg_imagefixthumb:7956]Thanks for looking!
Tom
