[mysterypie]

Here's a site that does live tracking of ships:

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:1.7/center...

"Since December 2004, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) requires all passenger and commercial vessels over 299 Gross Tonnage that travel internationally to carry an AIS transponder that include a GPS receiver which collects the vessel's position and movement details."

Counting across the longest segment of ships at the narrowest point of the English Channel in the feature article I see about 18 ships. In the live image from marinetraffic I see about 8. So even though the feature article is a composite image, the English Channel is indeed pretty crowded.

[hardlianotion]

Yes, you can still see the shipping lanes very clearly.

[buzzm]

Outstanding link; thanks for sharing.