A Tugboat shows up on our beach
It's been awhile since we've posted anything because we haven't been going anywhere. But last weekend Florida brought the excitement to us.
On Thursday Feb 4 we went to bed not knowing that excitement had occurred just outside our window. A towboat pulling a barge with several containers on it had had some sort of marine emergency and had ended up beached right in front of us. I didn't even notice it as I got up and headed out for my morning 3 mile walk. About 10 minutes into my exercise Cynthia texted that there was something on the beach near our place. I walked out onto the Deerfield Beach Pier and there it was.
In the distance was the tugboat and the barge. Nothing much happened on this Friday and I began to think this thing was going to be here for a long time. The police arrived and roped off the beach for a half mile or so both north and south. TV news crews also did their live news feeds from the beach.
Here's the picture from our balcony -- how did I miss this on Friday morning? Now on Saturday lots of equipment was arriving to get everything removed. I guess it takes about 24 hours to get the system moving in a case like this.
This was a blimp worthy moment
And you could tell they were planning for a long event -- TWO porta-potties arrive.
And the CAPT BEAU, a functioning tugboat, arrives, connects a line to the barge (which we couldn't see from our balcony due to the condo across the street) and starts pulling it away.
The news articles about the barge said that it was for the US NAVY, being delivered to the Bahamas, and contained fuel, supplies and ammunition for training purposes. CAPT BEAU just pulled it off the beach and took it away -- probably to Fort Lauderdale, because the CAPT BEAU would be back in about 4 hours. There was no damage to the barge, just a soft beach landing and removal.
Some work was being done on the Sea Eagle, our beached tug. You can see a swimmer going aboard on the left.
The beached tug was almost exactly on the county line between Palm Beach and Broward counties. The Broward county sheriffs seemed to do much of the patrolling. Even after the barge was towed away they were keeping people away. There was a lot of activity with heavy equipment on the beach, so it was dangerous. But then again, this is Florida -- FREEDOM. How could they keep us away from the beach.
The US Coast Guard was also present in large numbers. Lots of young people were around in blue coveralls doing crowd control and some grunt work moving things. Several CG small boats were circulating, particularly on Friday, keeping people away from the beached boats.
The guys doing this clearly were experienced in what they were doing. They brought in 6 plastic cubes, about 3 feet on a side, with a metal cage reinforcement. These were fuel tanks so they could offload the reported 10 000 gallons of fuel on the tug.
They ran a hose out to the tug -- I never did see just what they connected to, but the amount of hose they took aboard couldn't have been more than 10 feet worth. Must have been a tank emptying connection right up there on the main deck. They brought in a pumper and a large fuel truck.
Using a generator on the beach, they pumped the fuel (pink in color) into the plastic cubes. Then a Bobcat with a forklift grabbed the cube and carried about 150 feet to where the pumper was located.
There was a standoff on the first run. The sheriff had taken position to keep away the lookie loos. The sheriff moved off to the beach, and, amazingly, people would work their way around the fuel truck and the pumper and come in to take a look at the activity. Several had their beach chairs with them. The sheriff was busy.
The Boca Raton Emergency Boat came by to take a look and show off their water cannon. I guess it was a Saturday training session, but they were in position in case the blimp and the TV cameras were around.
The CAPT BEAU returned from its barge removal trip, and ran a line to the Sea Eagle.
All the while they were pumping fuel from the Sea Eagle. It was taking about 7 minutes for the Bobcat to make a round trip, and depending on how full the cubes were, I figured it was 50-100 trips to empty the tug, or 5-10 hours.
We walked down to the pier, had dinner and came back to see them still moving fuel around. Finally, about 8pm, the fuel truck left. This was about 5 hours since they had started pumping. I'm guessing that the tug didn't have a full 10 000 gallons aboard, and it was pretty empty by this time. The reporters must have gotten 10 000 gallons as the total amount of fuel involved in the beaching, with the barge holding a large amount for transfer to the Bahamas.
By 10 pm it had gotten really dark, no boat lights were visible, and I could see the surf line where the tugboat had been. Maybe they had moved it. Sunday morning it was clear that they had hauled it off in the dark. It felt like an unsatisfying magic trick: abracadabra, the lights go off, and a few seconds later the lights come back on and the tug is gone.
Sunday was clean up day.
By Sunday night everything was gone but the heavy equipment and the porta-potties.
Monday morning the Bobcat hauled the PPs to the street, and they were gone.
Last thing out was the big Caterpillar backhoe. I missed seeing them load it onto the low rider. I had watched them unload back on Saturday, and it was impressive. While using the bucket to steady it, the operator rotated it by 90 degrees while still on the trailer, then drove it straight off.
Finally, on Monday night there's no indication that anything happened here. Except maybe some heavy track marks along the beach access road. The guys who did this were real pros. And after a slow start -- nothing much happened on Friday, they did all of the work on Saturday, and finished cleaning up on the next two days.
