Woke wondering where my ship was

 SEPTEMBER 14 - Illustrated Learning Journal #cargoexplorer

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Found myself waking up this morning wondering where "my" ship had moored



or whether it travelled all night. Barely awake I sprinted to the computer to find it being loaded in a port called Waalhaven, nr Rotterdam. How exciting. 

Having watched it cruise in the pitch dark, navigating locks and barely lit waterways I was feeling happy to see it in daylight again.

It is so interesting to me, that when I dont know something, everything appears fresh and exciting , a new discovery everytime I ask a question.

As promised I looked up the ships name. It is MCS Feniks, and started its journey yesterday in a port near Amsterdam. Here a link to the webcam if you'd like to take a peek

https://webcam-binnenvaart.nl/pages/cam-feniks.php

I pressed a few dutch buttons and ended up on the right place which told me all the journey information, mooring times and ports of destination.

Further information , with kind thanks to " vesselfinder" can be found on their ship tracking website
https://www.vesselfinder.com/vessels/FENIKS-IMO-0-MMSI-244139567

I am not quite sure what all the numbers mean yet, but I will learn in time.

At the time of writing this the position of the MCS Feniks is here.....

and my screen is almost pitched dark as it is now night time, but the boat is still travelling , having had lots of container loading and unloading stops in Rotterdam. I'll post some more pics later.
Now I am wondering how it navigates, radio? echo? Ah here comes thing to find out...

image: screenshot, webcam copyright webcam-binnenvaart.nl
Container Ship MCS Feniks, Transport Travel by Night

This is all the captain sees ... as the container ship is moving to its new destination. i am in awe of technology and skill levels right now ..


other images: screenshot, with thanks to webcam copyright vesselfinder.com

Cargo ship web cam journey

 September 14 - Research Log

Today  I spent some happy hours being entirely mesmerised by a Dutch webcam affixed to a container ship with absolute close up views of loading the cargo .. at some point the metal box hung on the crane swung so close to the camera That I inadvertently ducked !! What a fab view though .. then the ship took off but alas I don’t read Dutch so currently it’s destination is unknown ... I left the camera on and hopefully will see in the morning where it landed.  It is a smaller boat and just passed a lock which was fascinating to watch .. I’ll look up the name of the webcam tomorrow and post a link on the bloghere

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Cargo Explorer Transport- Illustrated Learning Journal

How does Cargo Freight Move around the World ? Introduction

SEPTEMBER 2020 ,

Cargo Transport - An Illustrators Research Study Journal
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How do Cargo Containers Move around the World ?

A short introduction to this study project ...

Slowly easing out of Covid lockdown, one thing that struck me as interesting during the last 5 months has been the sheer amount of logistics that must be necessary to move cargo freight to and from its destinations.

Having been extremely grateful to the many delivery people that expertly kept our family supplied with everything we needed to keep us going, it occurred to me how little I actually knew about where these items came from, how they got here and above all what kind of logistical feats were necessary to keep it all running smoothly in a crisis. 

The more I kept asking the less, I realised, I knew. 

And I don't like not knowing ;-) . Once I figured that I really had no clue, I decided to start to learn more.

Living in Britain, essentially most things that are not grown or manufactured here must ultimately be shipped onto the British Isles somehow.

Mainly, I found out, by shipping containers. These colourful metal boxes that seem to move by at the edge of my peripheral awareness but without ever causing much enquiry.

So how then does cargo freight stuffed into these containers move around the world ?  Where do these containers go and how they manouver ? Who loads and unloads them? Who is in charge of making sure that everything arrives where it is supposed to?

Coupled with a current project where I am asked to illustrate a variety of formerly unknown topics, this seems like the perfect opportunity to create a research study project illustrated alongside the newly discovered information.

So , all thats left to say is. let's go and and illustrated journey of learning begins ....


All for now
...  onward

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