Watching the Tropicana

As I mentioned last time, we are shipping my car (a 2000 VW Jetta w/ 37,000 miles on it) to France, specifically Le Havre.  We plan to pick it up there in September. It is supposed to be shipped on the Hoegh Tropicana, a Norwegian ship that transports automobiles.

We left the car in Baltimore a few weeks ago, because we were expecting company here and couldn't do it later. We have been watching the progress of the Tropicana through the ship tracking site  http://www.marinetraffic.com.

We watched it go into and out of Jacksonville, Fl. Then it went out of range for a day on its way up to Baltimore. Wednesday morning as we were having our breakfast it reappeared on the tracking site. It was just outside the Chesapeake Bay headed in to Baltimore.  We tracked it off and on all day. By supper time it was getting close.  Then Jim discovered a traffic web cam on the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore. In the background we could see the bridge and make out ships going under it.  By the ship tracking site we could tell that the Tropicana was close to the bridge. We watched both sites and sure enough there was our ship!  We actually saw it in real time go under that bridge! Soon after that it was joined by the tug Donal G McAllister and docked very close to where Jim left my car.

Now we are frustrated that we can't track or watch it load my car, but we haven't found any port web cams.

HOEGH_TROPICANA2

Here's another picture of "our" ship. We will be able to track it leaving Baltimore, but then it will be out of range until it arrives in Bremerhaven, Germany, which is its first destination in Europe. We think it will be away from the east coast before the hurricane gets there.

Jim got e-mail at 2:00 am this morning from the "Notaire" asking for James' new passport information, because the one he sent before expired at the end of July.  James had just received his new passport yesterday, so will scan and send the info to Jim today.

Comments

Monica said…
LOL - I have to laugh at the frustration of not being able to visually monitor your car being loaded. How far we have come that you could watch the ship steam past that bridge. :-)

By the way, I missed the comment in your last post about being busy filing papers to form a company - are you purchasing the house as a corporation? What made you decide to do that?

Monica
August 25, 2011 at 8:09 AM
Alice R. said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
August 25, 2011 at 8:28 AM
Alice R. said…
That was really fantastic--being able to see the ship come into port. How long will the journey to Le Havre be?
August 25, 2011 at 8:29 AM
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