“Dole Costa Rica” in the morning
Each Monday and Tuesday one of four Dole Ships calls at the 10th Avenue Marine Terminal in San Diego to discharge its freight.
Fruit is loaded in Peru, Ecuador, Costa Rica and Guatemala and each journey takes 21 days.
Each vessel holds 491 containers, and each container holds about 1,000 boxes of bananas.
Each box has about 100 bananas, so each vessel unloads over 49 million bananas when in port.
About 2 billion Bananas are unloaded here every year as well as 16 million Pineapples.
The fruit is distributed throughout the Western United States and Western Canada, so if you eat a Dole Banana you now know where it made its landfall.
For those interested the ship is 14,500 tons GRT, 178.99m × 27.05m, was built in 1991 and is capable of a constant speed of 20 knots which is necessitated by it cargo.
Each container keeps the fruit refrigerated and has its own controls.
All images © 2004-2024 by Walter Otto Koenig, Images may not be copied, downloaded, or linked. All rights reserved.
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