An evening by the river

I took my camera down to the riverfront this evening. Too bad I didn't take a memory card, too. But I had my phone, so I got at least four images worth sharing here.

Good light for boat photography

 It's different having high water like this with green trees and warm weather. Here at 6:30 the light is good for photography.

Check out the roof

 Here's another view of the M/V Mike Sanders at Catlettsburg KY yesterday.

The river is up again. If he's heading northbound, he has four bridges (three highway, one railroad) in the next 20 miles. If he's southbound, he has three highway bridges in his first 10 to 15 miles. After that he has a highway bridge at the Greenup Locks and Dam and one railroad and two highway bridges in the Portsmouth OH area.

M/V Mike Sanders at Catlettsburg KY, 4/13/24

 

M/V Nashville plus 3

 The M/V Nashville came up to Catlettsburg KY yesterday evening. The river was running high, so I had to try to get a picture of it. Here it is passing the McGinnis boatyard at South Point, Ohio.

I believe the three boats are, from left, the John Vaughn, the Michael T. Somales and the Tom Frazier. The Tom Frazier was the one that had the problem at Portsmouth OH a few weeks ago.

M/V Porter J. Furlong, 4/4/24 ... with a tight fit

We got to see another former AEP boat pass through the area today, although this sighting was more of an accident. I was down at the river checking out how high the water had come up. At a previous stop I had seen a boat heading upriver. I didn't expect it to be passing my spot when I got to the boat ramp at the mouth of the Guyandotte River.

I was happy to see the Porter J. Furlong -- the former Mountain State of AEP. When it was owned by AEP, it was a frequent sight in these parts, pushing coal barges to and from AEP's plants in this area.

For this shot, I was tempted to get all artsy with it and see how far from reality I might want to take it. But when I looked at it, I thought, no, this is a nice shot of a beautiful boat. All I did to prepare it for this entry was to crop out some distracting elements and take the resolution down so it would load.

After I wrote that, I said to myself, let's take another view of this boat and get artsy. I tried by playing with noise levels and color saturation and all that, but when I got to this point, I couldn't do any more to it because I kind of liked it.

As I fiddled with this image, I zoomed in to see how parts of it looked. Then I saw these guys on the wheelhouse roof lowering the radar antennas. (Antennae for you language purists.)

The next shot in the sequence showed how tight things looked from the shore, what with the river being so high and the boat being so tall to begin with. Something happened between the shots and I accidentally turned off the autofocus, so that one came out pretty blurry zooned in. Becaise of that. I'm not doing anything with it for now.

But that's how an unplanned photo shoot came out.

M/V Mae Etta Hines, 3/31/24

 Every few minutes, some sun peeked through the rain clouds. It did long enough to allow me to get a photo of my youngest son's favorite boat as it passed Huntington WV today.

M/V Charleston is back on the river

 It was in the boatyard for a few weeks getting some work done, but the Charleston is back out on the Ohio pushing barges.

When all the painting is done, it will reclaim its spot as the prettiest classic towboat on the Ohio and Kanawha rivers. The O. Nelson Jones and the J.S. Lewis are contenders in that category, although the Lewis isn't really a working boat anymore, at least not for a while.

Three fave boats

 I saw the AEP Mariner was coming up the river, so I went to Ashland KY to see it and get a few pics. I was surprised to see it was deadheading in a tow being pushed by the Dan Elder. I got some shots, including this one ...

... and then went up to Catlettsburg where I got these two.

These are quick edits, with minor noise reduction done in the last one. Otherwise, they are straight out of camera except for cropping, lowering the resolution so I could post them here, and adding my watermark. I have several batches of river photos I need to edit and post. If you want to see some, let me know.

 

M/V J.S. Lewis

It's been a while since one of my favorite boats has been on the river, but she has a new owner. As this is written, the J.S. Lewis is on its way to Neale Island at Vienna WV, having been bought from Amherst Madison. Here the boat is being pushed by the M/V Alabama as they pass the John E. Amos Power Plant on the Kanawha River.

Here's one in black and white as seen from St. Albans WV.

I look forward to seeing how C.R. Neale III restores this classic after having saved her from the scrapper.