Melbourne, Melbourne!!

I love pictures and this picture tells a story. It's taken from the AIS data for Melbourne and Port Phillip. AIS is a system for ships that's like aircraft transponders. It broadcasts a range of data including course and speed, type of vessel and destination.

This picture shows why the Port of Melbourne is the busiest port in Australia. The green ships are all cargo vessels - most, but not all of them container vessels.

The most interesting "vessel" in this picture though is the little turquoise coloured vessel on the left of the picture near the word "Lara". When I interrogated that vessel it informed me that it had a speed of 124 knots and a course of 187 degrees. It also informed me that it was a "SAR aircraft" so that explains the speed I guess. It's very close to the position of Avalon Airport so I suspect some training is going on.