Most of the tugs that were anchored with barges in the North River on Friday had left us by Saturday morning. The Mako headed down to the bay, Morgan Reinauer headed back to base on Staten Island. St. Emilion headed down to Cateret on Friday, took on a new cargo and was heading back to Albany by Saturday afternoon. Remaining behind still at anchor was Curtis Reinauer and Unico’s Teresa still remains parked here now going on two weeks. Dean and Stephen Reinauer also arrived and took up anchorages south of the bridge

Donjon Marine was busy servicing its contract with the NYC Department of Sanitation, hauling scows full of recyclable paper from the 59th Street Transfer Pier (Pier 99) to the Pratt Industries recycling facility on Staten Island. All paper waste in Manhattan is brought to this pier and transferred to barges for transport to Pratt, which has a contract with the city to recycle the paper into cardboard boxes. This is the only active DSNY transfer pier on the Hudson (another one up by 133rd Street has been unused for many years). West Side Rag had a good article discussing the operations at Pier 99 a few weeks ago: https://www.westsiderag.com/2021/12/26/a-visit-to-the-disco-dump-shows-how-the-upper-west-sides-recycled-paper-is-reborn

Meanwhile, Pier 88 has a new occupant after Norwegian Gem’s short visit Friday, with the Norwegian Getaway having arrived from Florida early Saturday morning. She will soon sail again, heading back south for a cruise in the Bahamas.

The DEP tanker Red Hook was servicing the North River sewage plant on Saturday, hauling residual sludge to the Hunts Point plant in the Bronx for dewatering.

A snow squall came through Saturday afternoon just as the Royal Wagenborg line’s Adriaticborg came up the river heading for Albany. The ship arrives from Sweden after making a stop in Philadelphia and is carrying wood pulp.

Skies quickly cleared but the winds remained brisk and US Coast Guard icebreaker Penobscot Bay was taking water over its bow as it rode the ebb tide heading back to the Coast Guard station in Bayonne.