The spell of perfect weather came to an end Thursday, with temperatures rising again, though thankfully winds continued to blow steadily from the south. The second half of the week also has brought some interesting tanker traffic. Wednesday evening saw a Marshall Islands flagged tanker, The Amigo, coming down the river after having likely brought a cargo of oil products from the big refinery in New Brunswick, Canada to Albany. Most oil products head up to Albany on domestic flagged tanker barges, but occasionally we do see a cargo coming in from Canada or even Europe via tanker.

The other interesting move came with one of the newest Reinauer tanker ATBs, the Janice Ann, coming down from Albany fully loaded and heading for Boston. Loaded tanker barges usually are heading north on the river, and cargos heading for Boston are usually loaded on New Jersey’s Chemical Coast along the Arthur Kill. The oil products markets are complex though, and we do not know nearly enough about them to explain everything we see.

Meanwhile, the Mako weighed anchor late in the day Wednesday and by Thursday morning was heading down the Jersey Shore signaling Baton Rouge as her destination. Early in the day, a pair of tugs belonging to Massachusetts-based Stasinos Marine brought a large crane down from upstate to Weeks Marine’s Bayonne dock, with the Mary Emma pulling and the Eastern Dawn pushing. Mary Emma then seemed to be heading back towards Boston after a stop in Brooklyn

Hopper traffic also remained heavy as construction and road repair industries run at full throttle. We have been seeing a lot of Massachusetts-based Stasinos Boats lately, and another one, the Charles James, brought hoppers with some kind of gravel down from Tomkins Cove to the Newark Bay side of Bayonne where a lot of hopper traffic has been going this week. CMT’s Mister Jim was going the other way, brining some kind of fill and rock load and a deck barge back to Coeymans.