"A Whale" at Pilottown

Port Townsend, today. Last week, whilst researching components for the final installment of the "A Whale - Rail Connection," I accidentally discovered a photo of the "A Whale" on the lower Mississippi River at Southwest Pass.

Because photos of this vessel are so hard to come by, basically because she's less than a year old, I picked up the phone and made a call to the Associated Branch Pilots Station, located about 2 miles from the mouth of the Mississippi River at Pilottown Louisiana.

Bingo! Yesterday I received a great selection of photographs of the "A Whale" passing the bar pilot station, located on the main navigation channel to New Orleans, on the lower Mississippi River. Bar Pilot Captain Jacques Michell was kind enough to share these photos, which I am pleased to pass along to my readers.

The captions speak for themselves, and the Blog Index will lead you to all that transpired on the "A Whale" misadventure on the Gulf of Mexico. The arrow points to the intake slots, designed to ingest and separate oil from sea water, saving the Gulf of Mexico from becoming a modern day LaBrea Tar Pit.

The most notable of the set is the single shot of the "A Whale" departing for Sao Luis, Brazil, on August 12, 2010, which has been the focus of the latest Blog articles.

This is visual proof supporting my conjecture that the 12 of August would have been the day she left the US for Brazil. I would venture to say a rare photograph indeed!

"Thank you, Captain Michell"