Sunday, February 27, 2011

Total Eclipse of the Barge

Tug Eclipse
The red barge Bouchard (with matching tug) passed the white and blue barge (with name obscured by anchoring ropes, but also with a matching tug) at exactly 12:10pm.

Their combined power churned up the little ice floe chunks that had drifted down from Poughkeepsie. The gulls chased the barges upriver and down, then disappeared around their respective bends. One seagull stayed behind, turning haphazard cartwheels by the park, possibly in hopes that a kid will toss him the rest of his ham sandwich.

(Blackberry photos are so dismal. That red barge was fire-engine-full-of hope-and-beauty red. The white barge had blue and yellow accents so bright and primary that it made me feel like I was watching the Swedish flag toot down the river. Here's a photo of the Bouchard barge from their own website. The Bouchard Transportation Co. is a family-run business dating back to Captain Bouchard's first run as the youngest tugboat captain in the Port of New York in 1915.)

Learn more here: http://www.bouchardtransport.com/history.php

Bouchard Barges and Tug






Captain Fred Bouchard

1 comment:

  1. Saw some rain falling in a different river, and each drop that hit made a crystal splash in the sunlight that was like throwing diamonds. Saw it once, and never had before -- or since.

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