Above: The New Century, An enormous car-carrier, viewed from the local ferry.

The car business must be very slow. How do I know this? The car-carriers, these enormous cargo ships, have been anchored in the Plumper Sound anchorage, some of them from a month or more. This one is the New Century, built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. It was here for a few weeks in April and early May.

To give you a true idea of the size of this ship, here's the description from the above link:

New Century 1 is the world's largest car carrier. Built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and owned and operated by Toyofuji Shipping Co., she is 325 feet long, 105 feet wide, and has a draft of 27 feet. She carries her capacity of 6,000 cars at 20 knots.... She is a ro-ro (roll-on roll-off) and is equipped with several ramps so that the cars can be driven off the ship.

These ships bring in the Japanese and Korean cars to North America. Cross the ocean, then stop - in sight of land - but no dice. Gotta wait a while to unload their cargo. I wonder what life on board is like? Must be quite boring...

At night, from shore, they look like a city block. Bright lights, big generators going full blast. Waiting for their turn.I write in the plural, because right now the New Century has left for other ports... but it's sister ship, the Nippon Highway, is anchored in Plumper Sound. That photo if from a photographer on the island across the water from me, Kevin Oke. Very beautiful images on that blog!