RV on a ship
My ex-wife's uncle told us about driving his RV to Alaska about 15 years ago. They decided to come back on a ship and were able to set their RV up on the deck of the ship or barge and live in it duri...
Forum Discussion
Trackrig wrote:AML was the shipper that the AF used to resupply Shemya Island. It took a month to get there from Seattle and they got two barges a year--one in April and one in October.
Then there are several barge lines. There's AML (Alaska Marine Lines) which is part of the Lynden Transport companies. . . Also the barges take about 14 days to make it from the States to Anchorage because they stop in all of the various ports to load and unload cargo. Bill
Because Shemya had no natural harbor, the barge had to wait until the Bering Sea swells died down sufficiently to land at the dock on the NW side of the island. I got there in early November and the October barge had been anchored offshore for a month waiting to dock and unload. The day after we arrived, it finally docked. The crew and the RORO truck drivers worked 24 hours a day to unload, so the barge could get out before another storm came in.
The barge also had massive fuel tanks. Six months worth of fuel oil for the power plant and diesel and gasoline for all the vehicles had to be pumped into the tank farm at the same time the containers were being unloaded. It was a very impressive operation, planned almost to the minute, to get the job done as quickly and efficiently as possible.
