WISTA Sista’s- Santa’s Helpers for Houston’s Seafarers

Tonight was the annual get together of the Houston-Galveston area WISTA Sista’s to ready the Christmas care packages for our local seafarers. The Houston Pilots let us use their facility to organize the assembly of the boxes.

One side of the room had tables filled up with supplies for the shoe boxes: pens, mini-flashlights, pads of paper, snacks, candies, razors, hats, gloves, toothpaste, cards/envelopes, calendars, tissues, etc.

The other sides tables were filled with supplies for the assemblers (us)! 😉

Trays of cheese and crackers, sliced turkey and salami, pickles, olives, fruits and dip, sandwiches, tiny little cheesecakes, sodas, coffee and wine. 🙂

A few of us filled up the boxes, while others wrapped them up and tied ribbons. I’m not sure how many we made up, but we filled up 2 trucks by the end of the night. Half will go to Houston, and half to Galveston.

I’m not that much into Christmas. I usually work over the holidays. In fact, up until the last 2 years of this horrible downturn, I’ve worked every Christmas but 2 over the last 40 years! It’s great to be home with friends and family. To enjoy all the holiday spirit, traditions, good cheer and company.

Out on the ship, it’s hard to deal with the holidays sometimes. You miss all that’s going on at home. You may or may not have communications with your family (some ships still have no internet access for the crew and cell phones usually don’t work unless you’re in port). Most ships try to do something special for Christmas. They’ll set up a tree, put up some decorations and cook a special meal. Santa may even show up at the ship! 😉

You have no idea how much difference these little shoe boxes can make to a ships crew at Christmas. I’ve seen guys break down and cry. It does make you feel good to know that someone out there is thinking about you. Someone who you don’t even know, that wanted to make sure you had something special for Christmas.

I’m hoping I’ll be back at sea by Christmas! I don’t know if I’ll see Santa this year, but I know that there are people around the world who care for the seafarers (not just Houston, I know Freeport’s seaman’s center does and other seaman’s centers do too).

PS- WISTA is an organization of women in shipping and transportation (there are men members too). We had a couple of students from Texas A&M tonight (male and female). We had women who work in insurance, logistics, trading, piloting, training, and sailing. The maritime industry covers a lot of ground, there are all sorts of jobs on shore and on the sea.

Merry Christmas

Just wanted to be sure and wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. 🙂

No, I’m not a Christian, but even atheists like to get together with friends, family, and have a good time. 😉

Pirates Christmas

Getting into the Christmas spirit around here. It’s Christmas Eve already- wow! Here’s a fun little video by Tom Mason & the Blue Buccaneers. It’s another Song of the Sea too. 😉

Yo Ho Ho (Pirates Christmas)

‘Twas the night before Christmas

And out on the sea…

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Krewe of Jingle Christmas Parade 2015

I went to New Orleans for the Workboat Show again this year. I didn’t stay as long as usual  (due to not working this year), but I still had time to catch the Christmas Parade. 🙂

I had actually forgotten about it. They changed the usual schedule for the Workboat Show, so I was off on my planning. I flew in the morning of the show, made the WISTA tea that afternoon, went to a party that night, spent the next day working the Show. I spent all day Friday tracking down paperwork from my last boat (in Fourchon).

I had to return the car Saturday morning, so got up early. I had planned to go to the WWII Museum right next to the car rental, but I saw them setting up the streets for a parade and it was going to start in only a little over an hour. I wanted to see it for sure!

I decided to spend the time before the parade started in the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. It was interesting and I managed to check out all of it and still have enough time to get a good spot to watch the parade. I even had time to wander around, check out the costumes and take photos before they started marching. 🙂

This is the Krewe of Jingle parade, they’ve been doing it the last few years right around the same time as the Workboat Show (Dec 5 this year). I LOVE this parade! They have such great people, fun costumes, and they’re all having such a great time. It’s contagious. 🙂

I’ve got a lot of great photos from the parade. I’ll share more later, don’t want the blog to get bogged down loading. 😉

Merry Christmas 2015

DC AWAI workshop

I hope you all have a great Christmas!

It looks like I’ll be home for the first time in decades. I’m having a hard time trying to get into the holiday spirit.

I’m going to see some good friends tomorrow for Christmas, so looking forward to that. We’ll eat, drink and be merry. Hope you’re all doing the same. 🙂

Poseidons Christmas Dinner

Our catering department stepped up their game and came up with a fantastic Christmas dinner for the crew. The European tradition is for seafood for the holiday. So we had shrimp, mussels, salmon, fresh tuna and lobsters. Appetizers were various cheeses, crackers and homemade pates. We had roast beef, baked chickens, cold meats, even a roast suckling pig. For dessert we had fruits and nuts, cookies and cakes, ice cream and puddings. Our Italian clients even had a  special delivery of enough panettone for everyone to try a taste. Everyone enjoyed the feast. 🙂

We don’t really appreciate the catering crew enough out here on these rigs. I have to give them all a big hand.

Will Santa Make It Out Here?

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. 🙂

Merry Christmas 2014

New Orleans: Christmas Parade 2014

I went to New Orleans for the WorkBoat Show again this year. I stayed over a couple of days to just chill out and enjoy New Orleans. It’s such a great city to hang out in. 🙂

I did try to check around to see if there was anything especially interesting going on. I checked online and didn’t see anything unusual.  I had thought about going on another walking tour or going to the WWll museum, or the Pharmacy museum. What won out in the end was sleeping late. 😉

I had just got around to wandering out of the hotel and I heard the drums playing. I had to find out what was going on. I’m so glad I did. 🙂

I followed my ears down the street a couple of blocks until I ran into the crowd lined up along St Charles street and the parade marching by.

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It was so neat. I missed out on the beginning of it, but I was still in time to see a few groups of dancers, majorettes, and marching bands. The riding club and their little miniature horses were SO cute! So were the little girls all dressed up in their sparkling outfits, tapping their way down the street.

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Floats carrying bands playing Dixieland jazz and Santa-hatted, bead throwing locals were interspersed among the dance schools and high school marching bands. Santa and his dancing elves brought up the rear.

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And tho I think for some reason the bikers weren’t in the parade (technically), they didn’t let that ruin their fun and they had their own little parade right after the last musical blasting car passed by.

Nowhere like New Orleans for a party! 🙂