Day 254 – Ship Launch

We went to a very patriotic event today, and it felt extra good considering it’s the 9th anniversary Sept. 11, 2001. The USNS Washington Chambers naval supply ship was christened and launched at 10:50 AM today. At almost 700 feet long and 24,000 metric tons, she’s no small craft.

I chose this shot of the stern because of the dynamic colors and the surprisingly beautiful propeller, and because there was a person in this picture which helps provide some scale to everything. We arrived early and were able to just act like a clueless tourists and wander to the far end of the berth where I was able to get several great pictures of the stern. Eventually we were approached by security and asked for our gold passes and were politely (but intently) ushered back to the common area.

So, for this post we have it all – the picture of the day (of course), some extra photos from the launch and our stroll on the waterfront and G Street Pier that are worth looking at, and a pretty bad and amateur video shot of the launch I shot. You can see all of that on my smugmug account.