Chocoholic’s Delight Arrives

MSC Florentina, a 984 foot by 131 foot container ship sailing under the flag of Panama, passes Gaillard Island on its way into the port of Mobile the morning of MAY 5th, 2025. Moving at 11 mph, the ship reports a draught (distance from water line to bottom of keel) of 44 feet while finishing a day’s trip from New Orleans. According to ship manifests, MSC Florentina carries more than 57 tons of coffee (regular and organic), twelve tons of Belgian chocolate, nearly 13 tons of what documents describe as chocolate art, and about sixteen tons of kitchenware plus automotive electrical parts, zinc metal pigments and 2-mercaptoethanol, a chemical compound used as a rust inhibitor and in the manufacture of hair perms and dyes. Manifests indicate all of the cargo was loaded in Antwerp, Belgium. Photo shot from the Orange St pier in Fairhope, roughly 6.5 miles away…