That might not seem like such a big deal, but I’ve been working here in Angola since July and this is the first day I can remember that it’s actually been sunny out. It’s still not totally clear, there’s a large bank of clouds off to our west, but it’s much better than normal for this place.
I’ve wondered before, what’s going on with the weather here. It’s always the same. The seas are nice and calm. There is usually a low swell, always from the S to SW. It’s usually about a meter but every once in a while can get up to 2 meters. It really doesn’t feel like much on this size ship. I hardly even feel it move.
The wind is almost always from the South to Southwest but not as steady from that direction as the swell is. It’s almost always under 15 kts. Some days like today, it stays under 5 kts all day. 🙂
The sky is almost always overcast. For some reason, there’s always a low lever layer of flat grey clouds. I’ve flown in the helicopter out here for close to 2 hours and never saw the ocean til we dropped down onto the rig. I’d be interested to learn WHY it’s like this all the time here. I haven’t really had the time to look into it.
Every time I’ve been here before, there’s been almost total cloud cover the entire time. Once or twice I’ve seen the moon at night (this is my first time on day shift here). Today, there are a few nice puffy cumulus clouds around but the sky is blue.
OK. I’m behind again. I’m trying to work through this Writing 101 challenge (again). I tried it before when I was at work and just could not keep up. Real life is once again interfering with my time in the blogosphere.
I’m doing the best I can but ya’ll are going to have to just bear with me. 😉
The assignment is to write about a place, describe a setting. They ask you if you could be anywhere you wanted to be, where would you be ‘right now’?
I’m having a hard time winnowing that down. I could imagine myself at the top of Macchu Picchu or chillin out in Ubud. I could put myself under the sea on a dive in the Great Blue Hole off Belize or the atolls of the Pacific Ocean. I could imagine myself at home with my family when I was growing up in Florida or sitting around the gangway on my old ship with some great friends.
But I think I’m going to go with a cruise. I can hardly remember a better time than I spent as a kid on those sailing ships. I had such a great time. It was such a fantastic adventure.
Yeah, I was probably my usual self at the time, bitching about having to holystone the decks on Sundays or having to do laundry by hand. But I’ve very rarely had as many awesome, intense, all encompassing feelings of exhilaration and pure joy. Of just being fully and completely ALIVE and in complete harmony with myself and my surroundings.
I remember sailing on the Ariadne across the Atlantic Ocean. We left La Gomera in the Canary Islands and sailed for Martinique in the West Indies. We had a couple of weeks to make the trip.
The Ariadne was a large, 3 masted schooner. She carried a German crew and a few passengers and our entire school of fairly rowdy teenagers. I was 16 at the time. I remember long lazy days split between classroom, projects, and learning the ship.
I remember lying in the itchy, rough manila net under the bowsprit. Looking out for ships, weather, loose containers or anything else of interest. I would cheer on the dolphins as they sped along with us. No sound but the bubbling champagne rush of the sea along the sides of the ship and the waves lightly slapping the bow as the ship sliced through the slowly heaving blue-green swells.
The sun shone brightly in the perfectly clear, china blue sky and made the infinite depths of the ocean glow with stars of vividly bright patterns in so many gorgeous colors: neon green, canary yellow, turquoise, violet, wine, maroon, and purple.
Not too hot and not too cold. The days were warm and the sweat dripped in my eyes as I worked to sand down the pinrails.The nights held a chill, just enough to appreciate my wool watch cap. The winds were fair and powered us along at a steady rate as we worked the ship to get the best speed we could out of her with sails alone.
The winds brought the smell of salt and seaweed, yet it was somehow so FRESH. Sometimes the light, clean, crisp smell of rain and dew in the mornings. We would find flying fish dead- or almost- along the bulwarks sometimes, as we made our way forward to the galley for breakfast. We collected them for the cook who might fry them up for us or pass them on fresh to Whiskey the ships shaggy grey and white mutt.
Breakfast was served family style with fresh bread, butter and jam. Ham, cheese, eggs, fruit and milk (while they lasted). Helping the cook wash the dishes and prepare the meals was another way we passed the time. Peeling potatoes was a daily chore, everyone liked french fries. Hot and salty, crispy on the outside and nice and fluffy inside. Just perfect, every day. 🙂
We spent 4 hours on watch divided between helmsman, lookout duty and odd jobs. Then another 4 in school tending to our studies in Math, English, Cultural Studies, Oceanography, etc and things like Celestial Navigation, Marlinspike Seamanship, Sailtraining, etc. The shipboard schedule was the same as the traditional worldwide merchant fleet: 4 hours on, 8 off, 24/7.
Night watch in the middle of the ocean is like nothing else. It’s just amazing to see the black velvet sky, awash with those STARS like blazing diamonds. Nothing else around you. Occasional sounds of a creaking line or a sail luffing in the wind. The ship is dark except for the running lights which are purposely made as so not to interfere with your ability to see at night. Listening to the soft hiss of the swells as they pass down your side as you gaze in awe at the night sky.
Tweaking out the constellations from the abundant array of twinkling stars normally masked by the bright lights of town is a challenge. Remembering the stories of those star clusters is another way to keep your mind at play. Acting lookout is a wonderful way to calm yourself. You can take the time to really THINK.
It doesn’t surprise me at all how many famous artists (writers) were seaman at some point in their lives. There’s just something about it. “It gets in your blood”. I’ve never had another adventure like that one. I’ve been hoping to ever since.
I’ve spent a lot of time at sea in my life. I grew up around the water and on boats. My father had a boat that he used for commercial fishing for a while. I used to go out commercial fishing before I got into working in the offshore sector. I even went deep sea for a while.
In all those years, I’ve never seen a mola mola (ocean sunfish) in the ocean until recently. I had heard about them and seen them in pictures and on TV and they fascinated me.
They just look so weird.
It looks like a shark or something chomped off half their body but they still manage quite well.
I finally did see a wild one recently. I was on watch on the bridge on my last ship and one was floating around. It must have been a pretty big one for us to be able to see it at all from the bridge.
I couldn’t leave the bridge to get a good look at it. I could only see it from the bridge wing which is about 75 ft above the water and about 200 ft forward of where it was. We were able to pick it up in the camera but not very well.
I hope to see some more of them around here. So far this hitch we have not seen much wildlife, but this evening there was a school of dolphins just off the bow. That’s always a good sign. 🙂
I took a look at a few of the entries for this weeks Weekly Photo Challenge from the Daily Post (FRAY). Most of the ones I’ve seen so far seemed to flow from the use of the word as wear, erode, unravel, etc.
I already put up a post using the word ‘fray’ like that, but it also seemed like a good word to use to describe some of my experiences on the Pacific Breeze while tuna fishing. Sometimes, it really does feel like you’re ‘rushing into the fray’.
My photos don’t really do it justice. I only had a cheap point & shoot camera with me and most of the action took place a long way from where I was. I hope you can get the gist of the story from the few photos I’ll post here.
When the fish are showing, it can get like the Wild, Wild West out there at sea. There can be flashing schools of tuna as far as the eye can see and dozens of boats from a half a dozen countries all fighting for the chance to set their nets on the biggest schools of the best fish.
You better believe it is a SERIOUS business! It can get REALLY crazy!
It’s a real challenge. The fish are not as dumb as you might think. It’s not really that easy to catch them. They manage to escape before the net is set more times than not. Then we have to wait a couple of hours to get the net back onboard and everything readied before we can try again.
Yes, it is a real riot, the boats are definitely in a contest and sometimes engage in a scuffle. The fish are showing in a disturbance of the surface of the ocean and they broil at the surface. That is how we find them (along with the birds to lead the way).
The way it works with ‘school fish’ is that first we have to spot the school. The lookouts are up in the crows nest and report the sighting to the Fishmaster. He will decide if we are going to go any closer to check out the school.
We can spot the fish on the RADAR by their disturbance of the surface of the water. The large flocks of feeding seabirds also show up on the screen and help lead us to the fish.
Once we get closer, we can use our SONAR to look beneath the surface and get a better idea of what we’re looking at. The Fishmaster can get a lot of information on what kinds of fish are there, how many of them there are, the depth they’re at, etc. Then he will decide if it’s worth it for us to set the net.
If we do, the entire crew springs into action. A couple of guys will jump in the skiff boat. The Radio Officer will assist on the SONAR and RADAR. The engineers will be standing by in the engine room to make sure everything is OK with the power. A couple of guys will get ready to help keep the fish contained from the boat (they throw dye markers and pound on the boat to make noise-both of those the fish will avoid).
When the Fishmaster thinks the time is right, he will yell: “skiff booooooaaaaat……… LET GO!” and the skiff boat will drop off the stern of the boat with the end of the net attached. We will drive around the school of fish dropping the net as fast as we can while the guys throw out the dye markers and pound those hammers. It gets really exciting. 🙂
While we are rushing as fast as we can (not actually all that fast- maybe 10 knots tops), the speed boat and the net boat (and helicopter if the boat has one) will be doing all they can to keep the fish contained inside the area where we are setting the net around them. We need to get the net run around the whole school and then haul in the bottom of the net to close it before the fish get wise to the game and swim underneath it.
It’s such a great feeling. It gets really intense. Your adrenaline starts pumping, your concentration goes up. The challenge, the anticipation, the not-knowing, the feeling that you’re doing everything you can but it might all be for nothing. It can hook you along with the fish you’re trying to catch. I do love it! 🙂
Then it takes a couple of hours to haul in the net. We never really know what we’ve caught in there until we pull it up close enough to the boat to start ‘brailing’ it out. Usually, if we’re lucky it’s full of nice big amberjack tuna. And yes, they broil in the net! It’s always a thrill to count over 10 scoops (each one holds between 3-5 tons of fish). Lots of times it’s empty, the fish got away.
This is what a net full looks like when we’re brailing them out. If I remember right, this was a pretty good catch. 🙂
Just to clarify, the skiff boat is the one in the last photo holding open the net so we can brail it out. The speed boat is the little yellow one in the 3rd and 5th photo. The net boat is the one towards the bottom of the 5th photo, we use it to help hold the net open which makes it easier to haul it in.
When working for American companies, there are usually only Americans on board. Every once in a while you might see a Brit or a Filipino. Probably because of the Jones Act and other rules and regulations.
The Jones Act is one of the most important of the laws regulating the American Merchant Marine. One of the provisions of this law for US vessels is that the Master and crew must be Americans. Of course, there are exemptions. Lots of them, really probably too many.
But that’s another story for another post.
The ship I’m on now is not American. The company I’m working for is based out of Athens. It was out of Norway but it has been taken over by the Greeks. I’m not sure yet how that is going to work out. It seems already to be bringing unwelcome changes.
But it is a nice change to have people from all over the world to work with instead of mostly just from the southern US. When I’m working in the Gulf of Mexico, most of the people I work with are from Louisiana, Texas, Alabama and Mississippi. Maybe we get a few from Florida and Georgia. A very few from the other states.
The reason for that is that the companies we work for do not want to pay for our transportation to and from the boats/rigs so most people they hire have to live close enough to drive to/from work in a reasonable* amount of time.(*What the companies think is reasonable is not necessarily what any reasonable person would think is reasonable.)
Since I’m now working for a company which is not based in the USA and we’re not working in the Gulf of Mexico, there is no restriction on who they can hire or where they can come from. I really like that. I love meeting people from all over the world. 🙂
On my last rig, the DPOs were from Ireland, Croatia and the Netherlands. Here, they are from Poland and Canada. The last rig had lots of Brits. There were people from Ireland, Scotland, England. There were people from South Africa and from all over Europe (Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, Belgium, Lithuania, Italy, France, Spain).
Here, we have lots of people from Poland. We have people from Portugal, Brazil, Croatia, France, etc. We have lots of Canadians. We even have a couple of other Americans. I’ve met a guy from Azerbaijan and another from India. Some from the Philippines.
Of course, we have people on both rigs from Angola and all over Africa (Ghana, S. Africa, Liberia, Guinea, Libya). We are required to have a certain amount of our crew hired locally. We are supposed to train them up to take over eventually. I’m not sure of the time frame for that but it will probably take a while.
So I hope that will allow me to keep my job and they won’t take over from me for a while. Let me keep doing my job here a few more years til I’m ready to retire. 😉
So much of what goes on out here now is extremely complicated and complex. It takes a long time to learn the things we need to know to do our jobs. I know I am always having to go to classes. This place will probably be sending me to classes every time I get off the ship for the next year or so.
I’m not really looking forward to that. I used to really look forward to going to work. I used to really enjoy my work and loved looking forward to joining a new ship and seeing all the new places we would go. But they’ve taken all the fun out of the job. It’s not at all like it used to be out here. To me, at this point, the best part of the job is the time off!
Yep, let me keep working overseas until I’m ready to retire, that idea is getting better looking every day.
I thought this photo would be a good choice to illustrate the Weekly Photo Challenge from the Daily Post. This week the subject is “silhouette”.
I took the photo a while ago when I was working on board the Pacific Breeze. It’s a tuna boat, a purse seiner. We were fishing around the Solomon Islands at the time.
I was on board as captain (regardless of how many locals refused to believe that there ARE women captains).
I watched the guys set and haul in the nets and sometimes could get some great shots!
I’ve already posted for the Weekly Photo Challenge some photos of animals, and vegetables, so now I figured I might as well post some ‘minerals’. 😉
I took the first one while driving home along the beach on the Bluewater Highway from Galveston yesterday. It was such a gorgeous day! I was just interested in looking at the patterns and the textures of the land along the road.
I guess mud is some kind of mineral. It’s not animal or vegetable, right? 😉
The others I took at the Houston Museum of Natural Science a couple of months ago. I can’t remember what kinds of minerals these were. They had so many of them. I just thought that a lot of them were really beautiful.
Here’s another entry for the Weekly Photo Challenge. I’ve got so many great photos for this theme! I did animals already so now I’ll do some plants (animal, vegetable, mineral). 😉
I’ve been busy all week working on my taxes. I had to take a break and decided to go up to Moody Gardens in Galveston for Shark night. I had a good time. They had a pretty cool film showing about Great White sharks and elephant seals.
I’m trying to catch up on my email now. I got one for the Weekly Photo Challenge from the Daily Post. So, here’s my entry.
I took all these pictures there except the last one. I took that one in Korea at the fish market. Seems people there really love to eat those things. I’m not sure exactly what they are. I think they’re some kind of sea squirt.
My entry to the photo challenge (rainbow). Here’s the link. 🙂
The first photo was taken while I was working as captain of a tuna purse seiner out of Tarawa, Kiribati. We usually got to port to unload our catch every couple of weeks and I took advantage of the chance to go ashore every time I could.
Tarawa is a small island and it reminds me of what I imagine life would have been like in the 50’s. I had some great times there with some beautiful people.
If you want a better idea of what it’s really like, try reading the book “Sex Lives of Cannibals” by J. Maarten Troost. It made me feel like I was back on the island. It’s hilarious! 😉
The second one is from a trip I took down to Argentina with a friend in 2010. We went to Iguazu Falls (very impressive) and this picture was from the path around the top of the falls. I do have some much better pictures of the main falls, but they didn’t have any rainbows. 🙁
The last one is one I took while I was at work last summer on the semisubmersible Ensco 8506. The supply boat “Chartres” was standing by and in the perfect spot to get these pictures. Too bad my camera was so fogged up from the AC inside, I could have got some even better shots. I had to wait til my lens cleared up but was still able to get a couple of decent shots. 🙂
I made it to Luanda, Angola this morning. I was happy to find out that they were not sending me directly to work after all. They put me up in a nice hotel for the day so I could get some much needed rest.
It´s really a very nice hotel, but I can´t say much for the surroundings. Actually, I pretty much just passed out once I got to my room. I was really tired from the trip.I´m just not up to staying awake for 24 hours at a time any more. 😉
I was told by the driver this morning that he would be picking me up at 0530 in the morning, but that was not certain. I have been trying to check the email for a message to see if that will be the time for sure or if things will change.
The problem is, the internet does not seem to work very well here. I tried for a while this morning. It was in and out, but I could get a few things done in between the computer dropping offline.
Tonight (so far) it´s been impossible. I had to go down to the business center and work there. I´m trying to get a little work done before dinner and then will go to bed early since it looks like I´ll have to get up at 0330 to get ready for work.
So, it´s been an interesting week so far. I had a nice time in Scotland. The course was better than I expected. I´ve never been down in one of those freefall lifeboats before and yes, it was definitely different.
I hope to hell I never have to get into one of those things for real!
Yes, as Fraser (our instructor) told us, there are advantages to them. The main one is that you can launch and get away from the danger much faster. But OMG, those things are uncomfortable!
interior- freefall lifeboat
Not that the regular lifeboats are at all comfortable themselves. Imagine 60 people stuffed into an 8 x 20 ft (totally enclosed) space. You´re all strapped down in your seatbelts. The boat is rocking and rolling, pitching and heaving. It´s noisy. It´s wet, or at least damp and humid. There´s not a lot of ventilation. It´s either sweltering or freezing, depending on where in the world you´re sailing. If you´re REALLY lucky no one has started puking.
loading up the lifeboat
Imagine that scenario. The freefall lifeboats are WORSE!
We were riding around in a 9 man boat (Verhoef brand) for the week. There were only 6 of us in the class (plus the instructor), so 7 total in a 9 man boat. The one time we all got in the boat and launched, it was horribly cramped and crowded. I can´t imagine what it would be like on a 100 man boat (UGH). 🙁
After we did that one full launch, we launched a few more times with just 3 people in the boat. It made it much better. We all got a chance to be 1st coxswain and then 2nd coxswain.
We practiced driving the boat around the river Dee to get used to its manuevering capabilites (it handles much better than the usual -twinfall- lifeboats).
We spent a couple of days out in the bay. We practiced man overboard drills. We worked with the other (twinfall) lifeboats to practice towing and pacing exercises.
While we were out there, we got to see the dolphins playing all around us. THAT was fantastic! I wish I had better pictures to show you. They were all around us and jumping completley out of the water. I´ve never seen them doing flips on thier own like that. I thought they only did that in the aquariums, but they were having a fine time. It was great to see them every day. 🙂
In the river, we were priviledged to watch a couple of big harbor seals that would come and play right next to our dock. I couldn´t get any pictures of them, they were just too fast. Pretty entertaining to see.
The guys who worked at the facility were happy to see the small salmon hanging around the dock. They said they hadn´t seen so many in a long time. That was nice to hear. The river (Dee) looked pretty clean to me, but they said it was really pretty dirty (compared to historically).
It didn´t get dark til after 10:00 PM, so I was able to get out after class every day and wander around the city. I was really impressed by the history and the beautiful location of the city of Aberdeen.
I wandered around the harbor to the lighthouse at the jetties and spent some time exploring down there and then up along the beach. I went to see the Maritime Museum which was very nice. They had exhibits on the old sailing ships and fishing boats this area was famous for. Then they had some nice stuff on the oil and gas industry which is driving the economy now. I even saw an old DP desk!
DP desk
I stopped in and talked to people at the Fishermans Mission and the Seafarers Center. I also stopped in at C-Mars office here, just to see if there was anybody there I knew (nope- but they were nice to me anyway). I met a former fisherman who told me the story of Footdie. I learned all about the different kinds of shortbread from a lady in a shop. People were really friendly and helpful.
I wandered around a couple of old churchyards and parks (churches were closed by the time I got there so I couldn´t go inside, but the stained glass looked pretty impressive even from the outside). I went up to Kings College and talked to a nice man who lived accross the street for quite a while. He showed me a great place to take pictures from his garden pond where the steeple from the church reflected in the water.
Kings College reflecting in the pool
I wandered up into the biological gardens and then down along the River Don. I was lucky to have some gorgeous weather while I was there. The temperature was perfect, in the 70s all day. It got pretty chilly once the sun went down, so I had to head back since I didn´t have a jacket until my luggage finally showed up. It was time to go to bed by then anyway.
All in all, it was a very nice trip. Now I´ve been re-certified as a lifeboat coxswain and that should be good for another 2 years (depending on who I´m working for). I wouldn´t mind going back to Aberdeen for another course. 😉
Sorry I haven’t been keeping up with the ‘editorial calendar’ I made up for the Blogging 201 challenge. I hope you haven’t been too disappointed. 😉
Here’s something I found online recently with the “Creature Feature”/”Wild Wednesday” in mind.
This has got to be one of the weirdest fish I’ve ever seen. It’s head is transparent! ONLY it’s head is transparent!
There are lots of other sea creatures that are transparent all over, or mostly clear. It makes them less obvious to predators.
Supposedly, the transparent domed head helps this fish steal food from certain types of stinging ‘siphonophores‘ (colonial organisms- one common type is a Portuguese man-o-war).
It’s eyes are INSIDE that dome. What looks like it’s eyes are really it’s nostrils (or close enough). Weird. 🙂
These barreleye fish (or spook fish) live in deep water. This video is one of the first to ‘catch’ one alive. They’ve been caught before, but these types of deep sea creatures are not in the best shape when they come up to the surface. The changes in pressure are usually enough to seriously damage them (if not kill them outright).
I just think its amazing how much we still don’t know about what’s in the water all around us. There are so many beautiful and fascinating creatures out there and we haven’t even scratched the surface.
I think it’s a shame that through our actions we are doing such damage to pretty much everything else on the planet. I would hate to see that continue til it’s too late and we won’t even know all the things we lost.
I do think the other things that share the planet with us have a ‘right’ to be here too. Yes, I do think everything on this planet is here for a reason. Everything is connected. We are all part of the whole.
I think humans are completely unbalancing the entire world. Most of the problems we have to deal with now are the predictable end result of the fact that there are over 7 BILLION people on the planet (and we are STILL increasing that number daily)!
The crowding is not good for us or for anything else that has to share the planet with us. We are NOT the be-all and end-all of everything. Too bad most of us think we are. 🙁
I thought this was a pretty interesting question and the comments really caught my eye. I think if the SHTF I would probably NOT survive. Not for long anyway. Yeah, I always keep plenty of stuff around the house in case of a hurricane. I have enough food, water and other supplies to last me for a while. But if the shit REALLY hits the fan, I don’t think I would last for long. I mean really, how would I be able to hold off an armed mob?
It’s still on my mind since I just got done watching the new show “The Last Ship”. I read the book years ago. I liked it then. I have a feeling it’s going to have a different ending, but I won’t spoil it for you. I thought they did a pretty good job of putting it on TV tonight. I’d like to watch the rest of the series, but I already know I won’t be around to watch TV for a few weeks.
It’s interesting because I’ve been going to meetings of the Campaign for Liberty on Tuesday nights for quite a while. Most people there are also very concerned about the way things are going. We’ve been talking about this kind of thing for a while. So, we started a garden. We’re looking into water supplies. We’re looking into how to keep a line of communication going. We’re looking into alternative power sources. All kinds of things like that.
I do love to read disaster stories (including zombie stories). I like to see how the people in them react to the situation. In most of them, most people die, pretty much right off the bat. The story is about how the survivors manage to survive. THAT is the really interesting part to me. Physical, emotional, sociological, spiritual survival. All of that. How do you think you would do? What do you think would happen to society in general if a disaster happened? I’m just wondering if many people even think about this kind of stuff.
I agree with most of what Chris says in this video. He makes a lot of good points.
We need to make get our heads straight. We need to learn what’s really going on in the world and not just believe what’s on TV! We need to do whatever we can to improve ourselves to enrich and improve our lives.
Get out of any ‘toxic environment’ you happen to be in. Start working on SOMETHING (anything) to improve yourself (your life).
Get out of debt. “Debt is slavery of the free.”
Start doing something that you really love.
“Stop trying to change the world to make yourself happy or free. Start changing yourself to make the world happy and free.”
That’s all great advice! I’m working on it myself. I admit it’s not easy. I’m especially stuck on the part about changing myself instead of trying to change the world. 🙂
I just don’t have the slightest idea of what I could or would possibly change in myself in order to make myself more happy and free (other than what I’m already doing).
I’m working hard to be debt free again. I’m taking courses to improve my writing/photography/blogging. I’m doing something I love (traveling) as often as I can. I’m trying my best to physically leave this toxic environment the USA has become.
No, it’s not easy. All I can do is the best that I can do. That is what I’m doing. 🙂
I haven’t mentioned much about politics on here lately. Maybe it’s because I’ve been traveling outside of the country (I was in Korea for a month).
It’s nice that I can get out of the US occasionally. I would love to leave more often for longer periods of time. I’m even thinking I might want to leave permanently. It’s SO nice to get away where the politics isn’t constantly in my face.
Sometimes I wonder if there’s something ‘wrong’ with me. Most of my friends don’t really care about what’s going on around them. They always tell me to ‘just chill out’, or ‘just ignore it’, or best of all ‘just do whatever you have to do to get around it’.
I wonder “WHY should I have to do any of that”? Why should I have to leave to find the freedom I was guaranteed at birth? I was born and raised here.
I was brought up to believe that THIS country was formed specifically to PROTECT our rights! WHY should I have to try to ignore it when I see our government doing the exact opposite more and more often?
People call me crazy (paranoid) because I’m always aware of how much freedom we have lost in this country, even just in my lifetime. They say I’m crazy to think the things that have happened in other countries (Germany, USSR, N Korea, China, etc) could ever happen here.
But I see that we are following the same footsteps that led those other countries down the path of socialism/communism/tyranny. Why COULDN’T it happen here?
I wonder what’s wrong with everybody ELSE, that they DON’T care what’s happening in this country?
Why don’t THEY get upset that they have lost the same freedoms I have? Why do they clamor to give theirs away (and mine along with theirs)????
I feel more and more like an outsider in my own country. I feel like most of the people in this country have completely abandoned the ideas and ideals that our country was founded on. What made this country so unique in all of history…
The idea that “we the people”, (ALL people), have certain INALIENABLE rights. Rights inherent to us, that belong to us simply because of the fact that we are all human beings. We are all equal under the law (supposed to be here). That our government’s main job, (its’ only legitimate function), was to PROTECT those rights (it did NOT create or give us those rights).
Most people have been distracted and disoriented by the corruption of the language and twisting of the meanings of the words. Rights for example, there are those basic human rights that we are all born with, part of our nature as human beings. Then there are government created rights like voting rights for example. People treat them as interchangeable. They’re not.
People are busy arguing about media created hoopla over free speech (political correctness) and racism (freedom of association) and on and on and on. Too caught up in the small issues that tear us apart instead of fighting together for what’s really important. Our FREEDOM as individual human beings!
Yes, I realize that we are all very busy. I understand that most people have so many things taking up their time and energy now a days.
Most people are so exhausted by the time they get home at the end of a long day, all they want to do is chill out in front of a TV set. They don’t want to think, they want to vegetate til it’s time to go to bed.
Maybe as a sailor, I’ve had too much time to think in my life. Maybe it’s because I’ve always loved to read. Maybe it’s because I’ve always been an explorer. Maybe it’s because I’ve always been a skeptic.
But for whatever reason, I do think and I do care. What I see happening around me here flat ass scares the SHIT out of me.
OK, now before you all go running for the doors, please stick with me just a little longer.
Yeah, I’m fishing for comments here. I’d really like to hear from a larger sample of people around the world than just my personal friends and friends of theirs I’ve been arguing with on Facebook. 🙂
OK, just one simple question to start off with…
What do you know about the principle of self-ownership?
Have you heard of it before? Where? What do you think it means? Do you think it’s valid? How would you go about justifying it? Do you think principles like this one change with the times? Should they?
Here’s another one to go along with that, it’s really part of the same question… If you DON’T own yourself, who does?
OK, I’ll leave you all to think on that for a while. PLEASE comment with your thoughts here!
If you’re wondering why I put that video on the top of the post, here’s why. I love that band! I really like this song.
I also think it’s relevant to this conversation I’m trying to start. I do think there’s a war going on. It’s a war for our hearts and our heads. It’s a war for the principles we’ll stand and fight for. It’s a war between the great masses of “we the people”, the common people, (you and me), and the elites.
It’s a war between freedom and tyranny. YES, it really is. So far, it’s happening mostly in the background, behind the scenes. You can see it easily if you look around (don’t count on the mainstream media for your information).
“This is Why We Fight”: “When we die, we will die with our arms unbound.” THAT says it all to me.
“This Is Why We Fight”
Come the war
Come the avarice
Come the war
Come hellCome attrition
Come the reek of bones
Come attrition
Come hell
This is why
Why we fight
Why we lie awake
And this is why
This is why we fight
When we die
We will die
With our arms unbound
And this is why
This is why
Why we fight
Come hell
Bride of quiet
Bride of all unquiet things
Bride of quiet
Bride of hell
Come the archers
Come the infantry
Come the archers
Of hell
This is why
Why we fight
Why we lie awake
This is why
This is why we fight
And when we die
We will die
With our arms unbound
And this is why
This is why we fight
Come hell
Come hell
This is why
Why we fight
Why we lie awake
This is why
This is why we fight
When we die
We will die with our arms unbound
And this is why
This is why we fight
So come to me
Come to me now
Lay your arms around me
And this is why
This is why
We fight
Come hell
Come hell
Come hell
Come hell
OK, I HAD to get out of the house today! I’ve been trying to catch up on lots of things around here that mostly revolve around working on the computer.
My main computer (that I’ve had for a while now), caught a serious bug in Korea. I took it to the shop already, but they didn’t/couldn’t fix the main problem with it. So, I’ve been trying to use it while I transfer all my stuff onto the new (mac) computer I bought a couple of months ago and haven’t had the time to use yet.
I am having a VERY hard time trying to learn how to use it. It’s incredibly frustrating! I am NOT any kind of computer geek. I know how to turn one on and off and get to my emails. That’s pretty much it. 🙁
This is my first Apple computer. I bought it because I’ve heard that Apples are really great to work with photos on. Maybe they are, but I can’t even figure out how to LOOK at my photos on it! Yeah, I can open one at a time, which is frustrating enough, but then I can’t DO anything with it.
On my old computer, I use Windows Photo Viewer or Windows Photo Gallery to look over my photos. It’s very easy to use. I can use Paint to edit them. I could also use a photo editing program like Lightroom or Paintshop if I really wanted to work on them.
On my new Apple computer, I can’t find ANY kind of program to look at or edit my photos at all. 🙁
I did finally get Lightroom on the Apple computer, but I don’t really want to load EVERY photo there.
Maybe I’m just missing something simple that people who’re used to Apple products could clue me in on? I could use some help here…
Anyway, I was going stir crazy here, between frustration with my computers not allowing me to get much work done and taking out my frustrations by arguing with strangers on Facebook, I figured I needed to get the heck out of the house and away from the computers for a while.
So, I went to the zoo. I always like to go and watch the animals. I like to watch the fish swim around, the jellyfish are really calming. I like to watch the monkeys play. I especially like to see the new zoo babies if they have any (they did). 🙂
I saw the baby elephants. One was only 4 months old and the other was 3.5 yrs old.They were still keeping the baby in the house. It was SO cute! I couldn’t get any decent pictures of it, but I watched it play for a while.
baby elephant (3.5 yrs)
They had some baby lemurs. Those were really cute too, and fun to watch running and jumping all over their little habitat.
Lemur with baby
They had young flamingos. They were still gray. Last time I was at the zoo, they were little gray puff balls, they’ve grown a lot in a couple of months.
young flamingo (they turn pink the more they eat)
I got into watching the flamingos for a while, they were out of the water for a change and kind of fun to watch. Here’s a couple more shots…
I usually like to try and take pictures of everything but I still haven’t really figured out how to get past the bars and the cages. Sometimes I can get the camera to focus where I want it to and sometimes I can’t.Today wasn’t a good day for that. 🙁
So, I concentrated the photos on the birds and the fishes. I know I’ve posted lots of fish pictures here already, so today I’ll do some birds. 😉
I don’t know how the Smithsonian judges ever manage to narrow down their choices. They have so many just stunning images to pick from every year.
This year is no different. I’ve been flipping through their choices for finalists and runners up in the different categories and I would have a really hard time making up my mind.
I think I would pick this one…
If only because I LOVE the night sky and it’s SO hard to get good photos of it. There’s so much light pollution now. Also, I really love science fiction and the way they’ve set up those giant bugs just really does it for me. Lots of creativity and excellent camera skills. I love it! 🙂
Click the link and check out all the other photos. It’ll be worth your while. 🙂
Here are a few of my photos that show off ‘orange’…
orange wave (sculpture on Gwangali Beach Korea)
orange flowers (Jayu Park, Incheon Korea)
orange food? (fish market, Incheon Korea)
orange sunset at sea
orange sunrise, Tarawa Kiribati
orange beard (Surfside Texas)
orange umbrellas (and hair)
orange fish
another orange fish
orange spots on another fish
orange boat(s) alongside at Fourchon, LA
orange uniforms on the boat (me and Jess on the DS-5)
orange sky at sea
orange chopper (USCG)
one more orange boat (lifeboat)
I hope you like these. These photo challenges are fun. I really wish I had the time to go out and take some more pictures for them but no time so I have to use some from the past. 🙁
I haven’t done much with these photo challenges lately. I do really enjoy them. Looking at what everyone else is doing and trying to come up with something to fit the theme.
This one is easy for me. Water. It should be easy for me. I have so many photos of water in all its various forms, it’s really hard for me to pick out a few real good ones. 🙂
But, I did manage. Here you go…
out on the water
no waves on this beach!
water makes patterns in the sand
water sprays in Singapore
beautiful beach Riviera Maya
water from the air
water- 3 kinds- clouds, rainbow, ocean
Those were a few of my favorites. I hope you like them too. 🙂
Here’s another great post from the Dollar Vigilante. They always have a lot of great information on their website. I’ve been a subscriber for a while now.
I really couldn’t agree more with his post. I’ve been a traveler since I was born. 🙂
My father used to work as an engineer (before he said the hell with it all and started fishing). 🙂
He used to take on contract jobs for all the big firms. Sperry, Northrup Grumman, Corning, etc. I remember living in Boston, Rochester, Syracuse, Phoenix, LA, El Paso. Lots of other places in between I don’t remember. I was born in Minneapolis. My brother was born in East Hampton (we were staying on grandpas boat).
For a while we all lived in one of those old style cab over campers. Mom, dad, me, my little brother, the dog and the cat. We would live at a campground for a few months at most while dad did whatever job he was contracted to do.
We finally settled down in Florida. My dad took a job with Honeywell. Maybe because it was time for me to start school. I really don’t know for sure. My dad found the love of his life, (the schooner Island Girl), and my parents got divorced.
By then the travel bug was in my veins and I’ve been infected for life! I LOVE to travel!!
My grandmother did too. She was always off somewhere interesting and exciting and she would bring us little presents when she came to visit. Sometimes I was lucky enough to go with her.
I remember one time she took me skiing in Aspen Colorado. I was about 13. I had a blast! Another time she took me (along with her sisters) on a long road trip to pick out a boarding school for me. (I was a bad girl)
I refused them all. I just didn’t think I would fit in at any of them.
Good thing for me! I wound up going to school with the Oceanics out of New York City instead of any of those nice, fancy, expensive schools my grandmother wanted for me.
That experience changed my life forever. I wound up sailing around the world on large traditional sailing ships. I LOVED it!!I decided I wanted to be a ship captain, sail around the world and get paid for it. My grandmother never got over that I didn’t want to be a doctor anymore.
I wanted to keep sailing and traveling and never go home. I did wind up staying after for a while. I tried to find a job working my way back home on a ship. I was only 16 and didn’t have any seamans’ papers yet, so that didn’t work out very well. 🙁
I wound up talking my way into a position on board an old Thames sailing barge in London. The CIV was the name of it.
I had a blast!! The guys on there were such a fun group. I was supposed to cook and keep the place clean while they got it ready to sail across the Atlantic to the US. I don’t know if they ever made it. I had to fly back to the US before they got it ready. 🙁
I learned so much on that trip. MUCH more than I ever could have or would have learned in any kind of normal classroom environment.
We had class on the ship. We learned about things like navigation and seamanship. We learned them by DOING them. Most things we learned outside of class. For example, I learned how to work as part of a team. I learned to be a good shipmate and how everyone on board is there for a good reason and just as important as anyone else there.
We had to keep a journal (good practice). We also had a class called ‘cultural studies’. When we went ashore we learned about the countries and the people we visited. We learned the languages of the countries we were due to visit.
I learned how to communicate better, sometimes even non-verbally. I learned how to be flexible and more accepting of how things were instead of how I thought they should be.
I learned how other people dealt with the same kinds of things we do at home but in their own ways. I learned that my way (or my countrys’ way) was not always the best way.
I learned that most people are basically the same, wherever they live, they all want/need the same basic things… food, water, love, connection, a home, etc. We’re not all that different. 🙂
I learned there is such a great, big, wonderful world out there. I learned about myself that I never want to stop learning and exploring.
Travel is SUCH a great teacher, in so many ways. I encourage anyone and everyone to get out there and DO IT! 🙂
I was just really missing my job. Yeah, I know that must sound really weird. Crazy even. But I’m not crazy! Really!!
I don’t miss the work I do NOW, right at this moment. I DO miss the work I’m still sometimes able to find. Those few jobs that allow me to do what I’ve trained all my life to do. To sail the seas AS A SAILOR.
I went to sea for the FREEDOM it afforded. Freedom to just do my job (no worries), and enjoy life at sea with an occasional port call (with enough time to go ashore). Not much paperwork, no one really bothered us. We literally were in our own little world out there. Our own community. We all did our jobs yet worked together as a team.
OMG have things changed!!! (NOT for the better)
It seems like it’s almost impossible to find that sort of employment any more. You’ll take a job that’s totally confining, one almost as bad as if you were working on the beach. Paperwork out the ying-yang. Do a JSEA before you even get out of your bed (seriously, on one boat they actually wanted us to do that!). The only advantage is you don’t have to commute every day.
They micromanage every tiny little detail of your life, even to the point of telling you how to dress yourself every day.
WTF??? They hire us to run a multi-million dollar vessel with hundreds of peoples lives in our hands, but they think we’re too stupid to know how to dress ourselves? What’s UP with that?
At least the money’s decent. Not enough for the BS they put us through, but decent.
The other option is to find an interesting job. An enjoyable job. A job that actually lets you use the skills and knowledge you’ve worked so hard to gain. One that might actually GO somewhere INTERESTING at least every once in a while.
But it seems that every one of THOSE types of jobs entail working for people who think that their company is just SO wonderful that we’d just all love to work there for free and they don’t even want to come up with the minimum wage! 🙁
I’m still looking to find that happy medium. A job that lets me be a sailor that actually pays the bills at the same time! 🙂
Those tuna boats were close, I really enjoyed my time there. Take a look at these pictures and tell me you don’t understand my craving for adventure, don’t get it just a little bit, don’t wish you could be doing something like this instead of wasting hours in traffic everyday to get to a ‘regular’ job?
I was just going through some of my emails, trying to catch up and I saw this post from Mother Jones.
What a great way to make things better over there, even if just for the few minutes it takes to watch the video. It’ll put a smile on your face and make you feel better. Enjoy! 🙂
I’ve been working for the last couple of weeks on an ROV job. We’re working in the Walker Ridge area. It’s about 178 nautical miles SW of Fourchon, LA. Not much around all the way out here.
The other night on DP watch, we saw something flashing in the light around the windows. A bird? A bug? (Sometimes we get some pretty big moths out here). Turns out, it was a tiny little hummingbird.
Our crane operator Shane crept up on it and managed to catch it. It was so exhausted, it just sat calmly in his hands while we tried to give it something to drink. We mixed up some sugar and water and fed it by hand with a coffee straw.
Shane named the bird ‘Pirogue’. We don’t know why. We don’t know why Shane does anything he does. 😉
At first we put Pirogue in a water bottle so he would have a little room to move around in. It was just the only thing we could think of that we had handy. We cut the top off it, turned the top around upside down and stuck it back into the bottle. We fed Pirogue more sugar water and he started to perk up. We made the mistake of leaving the top off the bottle a little too long, and Pirogue was off like a shot! 🙂
He flew around the wheelhouse til Shane (the bird-whisperer) managed to catch up with him again. We put him back in the bottle and kept the top on to feed him from then on. 😉
Itchy (one of our ABs- don’t ask how he got that name) came up with a big 5 gallon water bottle (with the top cut off and some holes drilled in it) for us to move the bird into. We fixed him up a little nest of shredded newspaper in a cool whip tub. Shane made a perch for him out of a pencil. We put a cup of water in there with him but he preferred to drink the sugar water from the straw.
We hand fed him every half hour. Eventually, we figured he needed some rest so we put a dark towel over the ‘cage’ and left him alone til morning.
When I took the cover off him in the morning, I thought he would already be up and alert, but he surprised me, he was still very groggy. I almost thought he was dead, but he would blink his eyes at me verrrry slooooowly…
After about a half hour or so, he gathered his wits about him and started buzzing around his ‘cage’. Letting us all know he was HUNGRY. Everyone who came up to the bridge would stop by and take a few minutes to give him a few sips from the straw.
Pirogue has been making great progress. I think he might be able to make it the rest of the way home by himself now. Only one thing, the weather is pretty nasty out here now and is supposed to continue that way for the next few days. I’d hate to turn ol’ Pirogue loose, just to see him blown away in a heavy thunderstorm. 🙁
That’s probably how he wound up on our boat in the first place. He might not get so lucky again.
So, I’ve decided to keep him here til we make crew change in a couple of days. I’ll turn him loose when we get to the dock in Fourchon. Hopefully he’ll be able to find his way from there.
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These birds live all over the Eastern part of North America. Ruby-throated hummingbirds are the only ones that regularly nest east of the Mississippi. With a name like Pirogue, ours might be happy enough to settle in South Louisiana (but hopefully not in Fourchon itself). 😉
Since we’ve adopted Pirogue on here, some of us have spent some time on google. We’ve wondered how he would wind up all the way out here in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. We don’t usually see hummingbirds out here.
Turns out, hummingbirds migrate all the way from Central America to the US every year. I’m reading online that “many cross the Gulf of Mexico in a single flight’.
Well, they would have to, since there’s nothing out here for them to eat or drink. Until we started drilling for oil out here in the last few years, they had no way to stop for a rest either.
Imagine, flying for 500 miles or more without a break! Scientists have found that they fatten up a lot before they make their yearly migration. They may double their body mass.
Pirogue is a ruby-throated hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) . They’re bright emerald green on the back and grey-white underneath. Males have a bright, ruby-red throat patch, tho it only really shows very bright at certain angles. Pirogue is a male, he has a very obvious red throat. He looks almost iridescent. 🙂
They usually eat nectar. I know people use bright red feeders to attract hummingbirds so the red coffee straw was a good way to get Pirogue to eat and drink here. I learned that they also eat small bugs for protein. We don’t have any of those handy out here. (Good thing!).
Wikipedia says that these birds can live to be 9 years old, tho the males rarely make it past 5. I have no way of telling Pirogues age, but I hope he makes it through another migration. Maybe he’ll have learned to stop by another ship to get some help next time too. 🙂
Today’s Creature Feature is this story from Tasmania. It’s a couple of weeks late, but hopefully it’s still interesting.
I love the description of these jellyfish as ‘snotty’. What would you do if you were walking down the beach and came upon a 5 foot long glob of ‘snot’? 😉
I’d probably do the same thing as the kid that found it! 🙂
I think it’s cool that the scientists are still finding things this big that they haven’t really had the chance to study yet.
Well, here it is again already: Wild Wednesday (Creature Feature). I’ve been so busy, I haven’t really had time to keep up with things here as much as I’d like to. I’m working nights (1800-0600) and for some reason that schedule just really keeps me messed up. I’m always SO tired. 🙁
I saw this article and thought it would make a good one to post here. First of all because I’ve always really liked these giant fish. They’re so big, but they never bother anybody. They grow up to about 40-45 feet long and yet they only eat plankton. They’re one of the longest lived sharks, they can live up to 100 years!
I’ve always wanted to do a trip where I could swim, snorkel or SCUBA with them. I think that would be something really special. I see the pictures of people doing it and it just looks fantastic. They are just awesome! 🙂
I hate to think of people just catching these fish and slaughtering them willy-nilly, even though they are endangered. Most sharks and rays are now on the endangered species list. 🙁
I know a lot of people probably think: ‘good riddance’, but sharks and rays are actually beautiful creatures and are very well adapted to their environments. There are over 470 species of sharks and rays.
They live in every ocean, from the surface to the depths. They’ve been around for over 420 million years! There are some very interesting stories about sharks (I loved Jaws). They have interesting lives.
They have interesting history with people around the world. The Hawaiians were just one people who worshiped a shark god. People do seem fascinated with sharks.
Maybe it’s because they can (and sometimes do) eat us? 😉
They’re one of the very few animals that we ever feel even slightly threatened by anymore. Although there were only 4.3 on average unprovoked fatalities from shark attacks worldwide (2001-2006).
Hopefully that fact will quell some fear and we won’t allow the indiscriminate killing to continue. It’s estimated that over 100 million sharks are killed EVERY YEAR!
Sharks serve a purpose in this world. Just like every other living thing on this planet. They deserve to have a place here just as much as we do and we really ought to stop killing off every other thing around us just because we can.
One of these days those kinds of actions WILL come back to bite us.
I’d like to be able to do more this week, but my schedule is just not allowing me much time to spend on the computer. Hopefully, things will improve soon. 🙂
I can’t believe it’s already been a week! For the second of my creature feature posts, for ‘Wild Wednesday’, I’ll put up this video I saw online last week. I just had to say awwww… the cute factor is pretty high up there.
I’ve always loved dolphins. That was my choice to come back as, if I ever got reincarnated. I’d love to be a dolphin! Every time I see them out at sea, they always bring a smile to my face.
They have a reputation for being helpful to sailors. It’s nice to see a favor returned. 🙂
Probably because they’re pretty good eating. At least the islanders where the crabs can be found do like to eat them when they can still find them.
They are pretty scary to watch a bunch of huge crabs like these crawling around the beach where you’re trying to get a tan. I mean they do get pretty damn big! Luckily, they PREFER to eat coconuts. 😉
I came across the Great Dictator today (again) and I can’t even remember where. I think it might have been in an email from the Sovereign Man (an ‘investment’ newsletter I subscribe to). Yes, yet another of my hobbies. 😉
I had a little time this morning so I took a look and tho I’ve seen the movie before I was just stunned this time. I guess I’ve just been primed by all that’s been happening in the world lately.
I’ve seen a few Charlie Chaplin movies and I’ve enjoyed them all. For his time and place, I would agree with the people who consider him a genius. He could make you laugh, but he could make you THINK.
He had a way of putting himself out there and making people feel his emotions. He made people feel what he wanted them to feel. To understand his characters and their emotions.
He did so much in his films, and considering that a lot of them were silent movies, he was so far out and ahead of everyone else in the business, he really had no equal.
This movie was his first ‘talkie’. He played the leading roles of the dictator and the barber. He also directed it. He did a fantastic job in every way, and the public appreciated that. This was his most commercially successful film (even tho it was banned in most of Europe- for obvious reasons).
The Great Dictator came out in 1940 (while we were still formally at peace with Nazi Germany). It was written, produced, scored and directed by Charlie Chaplin. And he played the starring role(s)! WOW!
I watched the ending speech on youtube again and I can hardly believe how powerful and moving it STILL is after all this time. It is SO powerful. It is SO prescient. It is SO MUCH still true today!
I wish more people around the world could see this movie. It is a warning to us all. His speech is so moving. Even almost 75 years after he spoke those words, they can still affect me that way. I hope others can understand that feeling. I hope others can understand what he was trying to do with this film.
I hope people today will take his message to heart and unite to solve the problems we have. I hope people today will work together to find solutions to hunger, hatred, violence, sickness, oppression, poverty and war.
I hope people will come to understand that we (common people) need to unite to overcome the forces against us. It is the same now as it was then. There are people in this world who lust for power and will do anything to get it and to keep it. ANYTHING!
Nothing else matters to people like that. Not you, not me, not their friends, not their families, not their pets, not their neighborhood, not their community, not their country, not their PLANET! NOTHING!!
From the reviews of the movie and it’s commercial success, I think Chaplin succeeded in showing large numbers of people how idiotic it is to allow anyone to rule over you.
To give a dictator (or ANY form of government) the power to rule is just plain stupid. WE must maintain control over our lives. Chaplin does a fine job of showing that in his film.
Not enough people understood his message in time. We still had to fight the Second World War, (and then the Korean ‘War’ and then the Vietnam ‘War’ and then the assaults on all the little countries that no one even remembers-except the people who were directly hurt by them- and then the ‘War on Terror’ carried out in Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya and Yemen and Mali and, and, and…and America). 🙁
When is it going to end? Are people ever going to wake up? Will we ever find the gumption to tell all those power hungry bastards that insist they need to rule us “for your own good” to GO TO HELL!!
I actually started this post a couple of weeks ago and ran out of time to finish it up. It’s been on my mind for a while. So, it’s a good fit for todays Zero to Hero task: Revisit a Task and a Post. I did at least figure out how to get the video to play correctly since the last time I worked on it! 😉
If you’d like to know more about the movie, Wikipedia has a pretty good overview. Please let me know what you think! 🙂
