Lightship. Pilot. Tug.

All this fuss was for the 'Schweiz Reefer' (refrigerated vessel) coming into Dover Port from Guayaquil in Ecuador with bananas. She left there on 10th October and has come through the Panama Canal and over the Atlantic in fourteen days. 

I guess that's the Varne Light vessel way south of Dover but visible in the glittering sun reflection.

We sat on our favourite bench and enjoyed the double sun from sky and sea. The coffee I'd made was sour on account of an overboil and burned bottom. But what you gonna do.

Some gardening (although the grass is pretty much permanently wet now) and more leaf raking. A late lunch watching the Wallabies failing to succumb to the Pumas. Which was a shame.

They now have a thing - that's a technical term - in the Dover Strait which means that vessels must switch to lower carbon fuels due to the massive pollution from seaborne traffic.

Correction: the 'thing' above is called the 'North Sea Sulphur Control Area' (see for example here). This stipulates that ships need to use fuel with a lower sulphur content when they enter this area than they might normally use.

This handy IMO (International Maritime Organisation) document says regarding fuel switching,

'MARPOL Annex VI regulation 14.6 requires ships using separate fuel oils to carry a written procedure showing how the fuel oil change-over is to be done, allowing sufficient time for the fuel oil service system to be fully flushed of all fuel oils exceeding the applicable sulphur content prior to entry into an Emission Control Area. The volume of low sulphur fuel oils in each tank as well as the date, time, and position of the ship when any fuel-oil-change-over operation is completed prior to the entry into an Emission Control Area or commenced after exit from such an area, must be recorded in such log-book as prescribed by the Administration.'

from (IMO Media Centre) 'Sulphur limits in emission control areas from 1 January 2015'