For 170 years, the San Francisco Bar Pilots have been navigating the world’s largest ships through some of North America’s most difficult waterways. These state and federally-licensed master mariners are highly-specialized ship captains who rely on navigational experience, ship-handling skills, and local knowledge to transport more than $1.2 billion in goods to and from 200 Bay Area ports, docks, and berths every day. This critical service protects more than 1,000 miles of fragile coastline...
The Dutch coaster Mv. Stroombank is leaving the port of Figueira da Foz in Portugal. Normally operations are restricted to daylight only, but because bad weather was forecasted for the days to come we've received an exemption and were allowed to depart during dark hours. Cargo operations were running close to the departure deadline so we quickly secured the cargo and prepared the vessel for sea. The tide was running out so we used the forward spring to keep position as we went slow astern...
