Panama City, Panama.

Last week, I showed some specialized equipment for the ongoing maintenance of cruise ships while they carry passengers. On our overnight stay in Panama, I stepped out on our balcony and saw another important operation in progress, the taking on of fuel. The process is called bunkering and usually takes place through a ship-to-ship operation. A smaller bunker barge, specifically designed for the purpose, moors alongside the receiving vessel. The bunker barge then pumps the pre-ordered fuel into the receiving ship’s storage tanks.

Probably the biggest environmental impact of large cruise ships is their use of fuel. Over the years, improvements in cleaning the ship’s exhaust and in providing cleaner fuel options have reduced the environmental impact of large ships, cruisers, freighters, and other marine vessels.

Most cruise ships use a special type of diesel called marine diesel oil (MDO), which is made specifically for marine vessels. While diesel does have adverse effects on the environment, it is a far better alternative to the heavy fuel oil previously used in the industry. In addition, cruise lines are working towards improving their diesel consumption and exploring other alternatives. Some of the newest ships use Liquified Natural Gas which has emerged as a more environmentally friendly alternative energy source for cruise ships. For example, Port Canaveral in Florida is the first US seaport to provide LNG bunkering services. On June 9, 2021, a cruise vessel bunkered LNG at Port Canaveral for the first time. It was the inaugural visit of the Mardi Gras, the first cruise ship in the Americas powered by LNG.

Another important environmental improvement is the introduction of shore power. Even when cruise ships are docked, the engines continue to run to provide services to the passengers and crew. Though operating at a lower speed, they still need fuel. The latest cruise ships now have a shore power connection that allows the ship to connect to the city’s electrical grid for power, allowing them to turn off their engines. Though there is still an environmental demand, it is far less than the demand for the continuously operating diesel power plant onboard the ship. Very few ports are currently capable of shore power, but many large cruise ports are in the process of adding the facilities.

About the photo: One of the few times we’ve overnighted in a port, on our journey through the Panama Canal in 2023, the Norwegian Bliss docked at Panama City to await their canal entry time assignment. When I stepped out on the balcony to capture some night images of the city, I noticed the bunkering operation in progress. I thought it would make for an unusual image for Cellpic Sunday. The blue line at the bottom of the photo is the deck railing on the Promenade Deck that circles the Norwegian Bliss. As that deck is wider than the side of the ship, the starboard (right) edge of the bunkering barge is hidden. I used my Samsung S23 in Pro mode to get a DNG file for processing in Adobe Lightroom Classic and Luminar Neo.

I let the camera meter the exposure and made sure the ISO was high enough that a slower shutter speed would be fast enough to freeze any possible movement by the barge due to wave action. In Luminar Neo, I tweaked the Accent AI, added just a touch (about 5) of Structure AI, and sent it back to Lightroom Classic for final export.

Some may ask why I bother running everything through Lightroom Classic rather than working only in Neo. The truth is that I am very comfortable with the Lightroom Classic catalog and I use Lightroom’s post-processing exports to add a watermark and other administrivia. I also use an AI tool that works within Lightroom Classic that is called Excire Search. It uses AI to add keywords to images and makes finding specific images easier using keyword searches in Lightroom Classic. I did a review on an earlier version of this tool some time ago, but they’ve added some new features that I will share with you in an upcoming post.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s acceptable as well. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, and, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner