I recently changed where my desk is as work and now I can see out into Puget Sound, most notably I stare pretty much right at the Grain Elevator on Elliot Bay. Well this has lead to a new pastime, and that is tracking the ships coming and going at the Grain Elevator. I won't bore you with all that here I have an internal work site where I'm recording that. ;-)
Today though there is large cargo vessel with an oil catch around it and a tug saddled up to it and I'm trying to figure out what's going on. I still have no clue, but I have found out more about the vessels. Fist I was trying to figure out the names of the vessels as I don't have my binoculars at work. So I looked for a web site with AIS data live on the web. Well Shine Micro out of Port Ludlow has just such an application (requires free registration) that shows AIS data on a chart or on Google Maps (which has richer functionality).
Unfortunately, a lot of the vessels aren't broadcasting more data than their MMSI number, but there is a fix for that too because the International Telecommunication Union has a site that allows you to lookup vessels by their MMSI number.
With these two tools and a window on the oceans, or the sound in my case you can figure out what those vessels are up to!