shipwreck diaries

2010-03-11T11:11:00.002-04:00

A psalm of David.

1 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, 3 he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. 4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 6 Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

Welcome 2009

2008-12-30T06:29:00.002-04:00

I'd like to be...

2008-09-01T12:08:00.007-03:00

Octopusses in my garden are courtesy of Blix
www.asteroi-d.blogspot.com

The Wreck of the Hesperus

2008-08-06T16:32:00.003-03:00

Henry Wadswoth Longfellow

It was the schooner Hesperus,
That sailed the wintry sea;
And the skipper had taken his little daughter,
To bear him company.
Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,
Her cheeks like the dawn of day,
And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,
That ope in the month of May.
The skipper he stood beside the helm,
His pipe was in his month,
And he watched how the veering flaw did blow
The smoke now West, now South.
Then up and spake an old Sailor,
Had sailed to the Spanish Main,
"I pray thee, put into yonder port,
For I fear a hurricane.
"Last night, the moon had a golden ring,
And to-night no moon we see!"
The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe,
And a scornful laugh laughed he.
Colder and louder blew the wind,
A gale from the Northeast.
The snow fell hissing in the brine,
And the billows frothed like yeast.
Down came the storm, and smote amain
The vessel in its strength;
She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed,
Then leaped her cable's length.
"Come hither! come hither! my little daughter,
And do not tremble so;
For I can weather the roughest gale
That ever wind did blow."

He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat
Against the stinging blast;
He cut a rope from a broken spar,
And bound her to the mast.
"O father! I hear the church-bells ring,
O say, what may it be?"
"'Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!"--
And he steered for the open sea.
"O father! I hear the sound of guns,
O say, what may it be?"
"Some ship in distress, that cannot live
In such an angry sea!"
"O father! I see a gleaming light
O say, what may it be?"
But the father answered never a word,
A frozen corpse was he.
Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,
With his face turned to the skies,
The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow
On his fixed and glassy eyes.
Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed
That saved she might be;
And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave,
On the Lake of Galilee.
And fast through the midnight dark and drear,
Through the whistling sleet and snow,
Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept
Tow'rds the reef of Norman's Woe.
And ever the fitful gusts between
A sound came from the land;
It was the sound of the trampling surf
On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.
The breakers were right beneath her bows,
She drifted a dreary wreck,
And a whooping billow swept the crew
Like icicles from her deck.
She struck where the white and fleecy waves
Looked soft as carded wool,
But the cruel rocks, they gored her side
Like the horns of an angry bull.
Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,
With the masts went by the board;
Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank,
Ho! ho! the breakers roared!
At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,
A fisherman stood aghast,
To see the form of a maiden fair,
Lashed close to a drifting mast.
The salt sea was frozen on her breast,
The salt tears in her eyes;
And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed,
On the billows fall and rise.
Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
In the midnight and the snow!
Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman's Woe!

Lighthouse Gallery I

2008-08-05T11:33:00.005-03:00

Antikythera in the sea

2008-08-05T09:47:00.004-03:00

The Story

More in the NY Times

Tall ships in trouble

2008-06-30T09:07:00.006-03:00

The wreck of the Royal Charter - the ship that never reached home.

HAVING safely travelled thousands of miles by sea from Australia, the passengers and crew of the steam clipper Royal Charter must have relaxed, knowing they would shortly land in Liverpool.

Many on board were former miners who had made considerable fortunes in the Australian gold rush and the ship was also carrying a cargo of gold.

After leaving Melbourne 60 days earlier (a fast journey in those days), her 371 passengers and 112 crew were more than ready to enjoy the next chapter in their lives. But it was not to be.

Having survived the Indian Ocean, Cape Horn, the long haul up the forbidding south Atlantic and with a call at Queenstown (now Cobh) behind her, terrible disaster struck almost within sight of home.

On October 25, 1859, as Royal Charter sailed along the north west tip of Anglesey, the barometer suddenly started dropping and severe weather was looming. It was claimed later by some passengers that the master, Captain Thomas Taylor, was advised to shelter in Holyhead, but decided to make for Liverpool, as the ship had ridden well through the stormy Southern Ocean.

Capt Taylor had failed to pick up the Liverpool pilot at Port Lynas, as the gales rose to Beaufort Force 10 and the sea was rising, whipped up by the wind.

Then Royal Charter was suddenly hit by an exceptional tempest: the wind rose to full hurricane force (Beaufort scale 12) and the wind suddenly changed direction, from east to north-east, then north-north-east, with nowhere for the ship to go but on to the rocky shore.

At 11pm Capt Taylor anchored the ship, but at 1.30am on October 26 the port anchor chain snapped, followed by the starboard chain an hour later. In spite of cutting the masts down to reduce the wind-drag, Royal Charter was driven inshore with her steam engine unable to make headway against the gale.

The ship initially grounded on a sandbank, but in the early morning the rising tide drove her onto the rocks at a point just north of Moelfre on the eastern coast of Anglesey.

She was battered against the rocks by huge waves, whipped up by winds roaring over at more than 100 mph.

Incredibly, just 10 yards of boiling angry water lay between ships and shore. A Maltese seaman, Joseph Rodgers, got a line ashore for a bosun’s chair with help from Moelfre villagers. But conditions were so rough that only about 16 passengers and 29 others survived.

Others were said to have drowned, weighed down by the belts of gold they were wearing around their bodies. No women or children survived. Some 459 lives were lost, the highest death toll of any shipwreck on the Welsh coast.

Most were not drowned, but were crushed or pounded to death when the ship broke up, or when the waves swept them off rocks.

This shipwreck was the worst of some 200 ships wrecked that night in what’s known as the Royal Charter Storm.

Much gold was rumoured to have washed up on the coasts near Moelfre, making some families literally rich overnight.

The gold bullion cargo was insured for £322,000, but the total value of the gold onboard must have been much higher.

Many of the bodies recovered from the sea were buried at Llanallgo churchyard nearby, where their graves and a memorial can still be seen. Another memorial is set on the Anglesey Coastal Path, on the cliff above the rocks where the ship struck.
Almost immediately, salvage teams went to work on the wreck. The ship’s carcass lies close to the shore in less than 20ft of water.

The remains can be seen in the form of iron bulkheads, plates and ribs which are revealed and then immersed again in the shifting sands.
Gold sovereigns, pistols, spectacles and other personal items have been found by divers and more serious salvage attempts searching for treasure have taken place in the last couple of years.

A Dickens of a disaster

The Liverpool Daily Post
June 29, 2008

Lost in the North West

2008-06-26T05:12:00.004-03:00

Inuit oral stories could solve mystery of Franklin expedition

Randy Boswell, Canwest News Service Published: Wednesday, June 25, 2008

More than 150 years after the disappearance of the Erebus and Terror -- the famously ill-fated ships of the lost Franklin Expedition -- fresh clues have emerged that could help solve Canadian history's most enduring mystery.

A Montreal writer set to publish a book on Inuit oral chronicles from the era of Arctic exploration says she's gathered a "hitherto unreported" account of a British ship wintering in 1850 in the Royal Geographical Society Islands -- a significant distance west of the search targets of several 19th- and 20th-century expeditions that have probed the southern Arctic Ocean for Canada's most sought-after shipwrecks.

Dorothy Harley Eber, author of the forthcoming Encounters on the Passage: Inuit Meet the Explorers, says the new details about Sir John Franklin's disastrous Arctic voyage in the late 1840s emerged from interviews she conducted with several Inuit elders at Cambridge Bay, Nunavut.

The Inuit account -- passed down from 19th-century ancestors who witnessed the British expedition's failed attempt to find the Northwest Passage -- describes "an exploring vessel" that anchored off the Royal Geographical Society Islands during the winter of 1850 because "they were iced-in and had no choice."

Evidence of the expedition's presence on the islands, according to Inuit oral history captured by Eber, can still be seen during the summer months in greasy deposits along the shore where "the ground is soiled by rendered seal oil blubber" used by stranded crewmen to fuel fires for cooking and warmth.

"When I recorded it, and first heard the information, I didn't have a map with me and I wasn't actually quite sure what I was hearing," Eber told Canwest News Service on Wednesday. "But I later had the material translated two or three times and I realized it was very important."

The Royal Geographical Society Islands lie between Victoria Island and King William Island where the Victoria Strait reaches the Queen Maud Gulf north of mainland Nunavut.

The location of the iced-in ship described by the Inuit is nearly 100 kilometres to the northwest of a stretch of water between O'Reilly and Kirkwall islands -- close to King William Island and the mainland Adelaide Peninsula -- that has emerged as the prime search area for Franklin shipwreck hunters.

University of Toronto Press, which is publishing Eber's book this fall, is billing the book as a must-read for Franklin aficionados, in which "new information opens up another fascinating chapter" on the tragic Arctic voyage.

Franklin himself died in June 1847, with the two ships at his command frozen in sea ice somewhere west of King William Island. The 105 surviving crew members battled bitter cold and ice-choked seas before succumbing to hunger and disease over the following few years.

A series of searches in the 1850s gripped the British nation and its Canadian colonies, and much of the Arctic archipelago was mapped and claimed for the British Empire as a result.

Various artifacts from the Franklin Expedition and the remains of several crewmen have been discovered over years, but the ships have eluded searchers -- including those on a major Canadian government-sponsored expedition in the 1990s.

The man who headed that search -- Robert Grenier, chief of marine archeology for Parks Canada -- said he discussed the new account of the Franklin ship earlier this week with Eber, calling the Montreal author's findings "very interesting."

http://www.victorianweb.org/history/franklin/franklin.html

http://www.mysteriesofcanada.com/Nunavut/franklin_expedition.htm

Thoreau on Shipwreck

2008-05-23T08:31:00.004-03:00

(21) The verses addressed to Columbus, dying, may, with slight alterations, be applied to the passengers of the St. John:

"Soon with them will all be over,
Soon the voyage will be begun
That shall bear them to discover,
Far away, a land unknown.
"Land that each, alone, must visit,
But no tidings bring to men;
For no sailor, once departed,
Ever hath returned again.
"No carved wood, no broken branches
Ever drift from that far wild;
He who on that ocean launches
Meets no corse of angel child.
"Undismayed, my noble sailors,
Spread, then spread your canvas out;
Spirits! on a sea of ether
Soon shall ye serenely float!
"Where the deep no plummet soundeth,
Fear no hidden breakers there,
And the fanning wing of angels
Shall your bark right onward bear.
"Quit, now, full of heart and comfort,
These rude shores, they are of earth;
Where the rosy clouds are parting,
There the blessed isles loom forth."

Cape Cod - Henry David Thoreau

Complete accounta at:
The Shipwreck (St. John)

Interesting references to Thoreau in Cape Cod at:
"Why Thoreau came to Cape Cod"

Much more on Shipwreck of the St. John

2008-05-19T15:21:00.006-03:00

Sunk

Deep, deep down in the dark of drunken water,
in the swirling wine of a pirate’s last wish,
lies a treasure box lost for a thousand years.
Full of gold so soft,you can squeeze sunlight
from bubbles of rainbow coins
as they tumble droplets of pearls
into an ocean of diamonds
where emerald waves crash
on a world of shipwrecked secrets.

The sea in its salt sorrow
cries crocodile tears for
the foolishness of divers
that never resurface
and there is no map or compass
that can take you there,
only the wind whispering through the sails,
the mocking laughter of mermaids
murmuring in the deep, deep belly of a whale,
on the other side of Atlantis,
where all plank walkers finally wake.

by Aoife Mannix

For Applecart, a colloboration between Oily Cart and Apples & Snakes, commissioned by Theatre Is
http://www.applecart.wordpress.com/
http://www.aoifemannix.com/

Apple bounty

2008-05-13T08:01:00.002-03:00

A big bite of history

May 10 2008 by Rhodri Clark, Western Mail

Shipwrecks around the coast of Wales have yielded all sorts of relics. But experts now believe that a glamorous ship owned by one of America’s most successful families in the early 19th century left a legacy that still survives on a windswept Cardigan Bay hillside today. Rhodri Clark reports

TWO centuries ago the people who lived along the coast north of Barmouth were used to searching the shore for booty from shipwrecks. A treacherous reef, known as St Patrick’s Causeway, stretches out to sea for about 14 miles.

Hundreds of ships were torn apart there over the centuries when the Irish Sea was a principal trade route between Britain, Ireland, France, Spain and further afield.

When an American ship called the Diamond crashed onto the rocks on January 2 1825, red apples were among the cargo washed ashore.

Enterprising locals spotted an opportunity to make this gift last longer than the short-lived gain depicted in Whisky Galore.

Local legend has it that seeds from the apples were planted and the trees nurtured to feed local communities. There may even have been orchards of these American trees in the area.

A tree which may be a descendant of the shipwrecked apples was recently tracked down – still bearing a good crop of apples each year. Experts say the tree’s fruit has no close relative in Britain but resembles an old US apple variety.

The Diamond was no ordinary ship. It was built in Manhattan for the Macy family, which subsequently achieved fame with its New York department store – said to be the biggest in the world. Other Macys had previously founded one of the world’s first oil companies, processing the carcasses brought ashore by whaling ships.

The entrepreneurial family had new ideas about trans-Atlantic passenger and cargo shipping, and the Diamond embodied new technology and practices to put the business plan into action. Instead of accepting the standard wooden hull of the age, the Macys paid to have it reinforced by the addition of metal.

Instead of taking a month or six weeks to cross the Atlantic, the Diamond could cross in just 21 days. The Macys ran their ships to schedules, breaking with the tradition of ships waiting in port until the holds and cabins were filled.

The Diamond had limited passenger accommodation, the rest of the ship being given over to precious cargo.

“The people who travelled on the Diamond were the people who today would fly first class in a jumbo jet, or on Concorde when it was operating,” says marine archaeologist Mike Bowyer, who has spent more than 30 years researching the wreck.

When the ship left New York on its last voyage on December 12 1824, the passenger list included cotton barons from Yorkshire and Lancashire returning from striking deals with American cotton growers to keep English textile mills in full flow. Others were travelling home after making a fortune in the US. In all 28 passengers were recorded as having embarked. Reports of the accident say that of the crew and passengers, nine survived and 10 drowned.

The loss of the Diamond was a personal tragedy as well as a financial setback for the Macys.

Mr Bowyer, who lives in Bangor, says the ship’s regular captain, Josiah Macy, was replaced for the voyage by his brother Henry, who drowned in the accident aged 33.

The story of the Diamond is also a story about food miles. Today sea and air transport are so safe our main concerns are over the greenhouse gases emitted in carrying fruit and other foods over hundreds of thousands of miles.

Back then the main problem was the loss of life, on countless ships.

The apples in the Diamond’s hold were a premium luxury food. Modern consumers are used to buying apples at any time of the year. In 1825 it was impossible to store fresh apples for long, and importing them was difficult because the fruits would rot.

By guaranteeing a faster crossing, the Diamond opened new trading possibilities for farmers in the US who could grow apples and other produce later than was possible in the UK.

In the event it wasn’t the English aristocracy that benefited from the fruits the Diamond carried over the Atlantic at such great cost, but people on the Meirionnydd coast.

The canniest among them planted the seeds. Local folklore tells of apples from the shipwreck being grown in orchards and sold at markets in the area. In the early Victorian era people on Wales’ western coasts bought local produce not to assuage their consciences over “food miles” but out of necessity. The bright red apples grown from the Diamond’s cargo would have made a refreshing change from the usual varieties grown locally.

Eventually the secluded way of life in Meirionnydd was overturned as railways crept deeper and deeper into Wales. The Cambrian Railway, brainchild of Welsh industrialist David Davies, laid a track along the coast, audaciously striding on a trestle bridge across the mouth of the Mawddach estuary to reach Barmouth and Harlech.

Mass tourism quickly transformed the area. The trains also heralded a trend towards greater centralisation and standardisation of production, a trend which continues today.

Apples have been subjected to that process as much as anything else. A handful of varieties has dominated supermarket shelves for the past decade or more. The fruit sections of garden centres have also focused on a few popular sellers, but with apples so plentiful and cheap in the shops many people have forgotten about growing their own. Many native Welsh apple varieties, resistant to the local climate and diseases, have probably been lost for ever.

Commercial apple growers have also been affected. Kent, perfect for apple cultivation, has lost 85% of its orchards in the past 50 years. Herefordshire has lost even more. When British apple trees groan under the weight of fruit in late summer, supermarkets stock imported apples.

One man determined to fight back is Bangor-based Ian Sturrock, who has brought several native Welsh fruit species back from the almost dead.

When the tale of the Diamond and its apple cargo reached his ears, he set off across Snowdonia on a detective’s mission. By then, however, supermarkets and food imports had taken their toll and there was no sign of unusual apples in the Barmouth area.

For three summers he searched the land and questioned people. Mike Bowyer joined the quest. A wreck which was thought to be that of the Diamond – and was even protected by Cadw – had turned out to be the remains of another ship.

The two men had almost given up hope when, one Sunday morning, they happened to look over somebody’s garden wall in Dyffryn Ardudwy.

That somebody was Guy Lloyd. “The house that I live in belonged to my grandmother and two maiden aunts previously,” he says.

“My elderly aunt, Marian Lloyd, had always talked about this tree as being descended from the Diamond. When she moved into this house in the early 1950s there must have been some story handed down then about the tree.

“It was always said that there were one or two trees in this immediate area, because the Diamond went down near here.

“It’s quite a hardy tree. It produces quite a heavy crop of fruit most years. The fruits are two or two-and-a-half inches across. They look very attractive.

“They’re quite nice eaten fresh from the tree, but I don’t care much for them a few days after they’ve been picked.”

That remark suggests that the apple would not have travelled well, especially on an ocean voyage lasting weeks. On the other hand, the climate on the windswept coastal foothills of Snowdonia is a long way from the American climate that ripened the apples placed in the Diamond’s hold.

Mr Sturrock was delighted to hear Mr Lloyd’s story, having realised that the fruit on the tree was out of character for Gwynedd. However, some form of proof was needed. He sent some of the bright red apples for analysis to the National Fruit Collection in Kent.

“None of the national experts has recognised it as being anything else,” says Mr Sturrock. “Its most likely relative is Baldwin.”

The first Baldwin tree is thought to have been identified in about 1740 in Massachusetts. It produced vivid red apples that were popular for eating and cider making for decades. Mr Sturrock believes apples of this type were exported from New York to Britain in the 19th Century.

The fact that the Dyffryn Ardudwy apples are unlike any native British species but closely related to an American one is perhaps the closest anyone will ever come to connecting the old tree with the shipwreck.

It was good enough for Ian Sturrock, who has started selling the tree’s young offspring – an apple variety newly named Diamond.

http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/

The Garifuna : Rebels of the Caribbean

2008-03-26T07:02:00.004-03:00

"... Honduras remains after Haiti the second poorest country in the hemisphere. The Central American staples of chronic insecurity, massive migration and economic precariousness bedevil the country. And in a nation saturated by Pepsi Cola culture, McDonalds, shopping malls, and all things tacky USA bent on homogenizing everything into consumer conformity, the Garifuna stand out as fantastically different.

About 100,000 Garifuna live in small fishing communities hugging the Caribbean coast, speaking their own Igñeri dialect which is a combination of Arahuaco, Swahili, and Bantu.

Theirs is a vibrant living culture born of an utterly unique history. Between 1640 and 1670, two slave ships coming from West Africa ran aground of the tiny island of St. Vincent, in the lesser Antilles. So began the story of the people who came to be known as the Garifuna - born of a shipwreck, and never enslaved. Their fate should have been to labor to death on the colonizers’ cotton and cane plantations, but instead they find themselves - a couple of hundred castaways - on a tropical island populated by a hostile indigenous population known as the Red Caribs. This is character building stuff for sure.

The Red Caribs rescued the shipwrecked but any goodwill ended there. The indigenous attempted to enslave the newcomers and the Africans, as was to become characteristic of them, resisted. The Africans retreated to the western mountains of the island, forming a Maroon community that in time, was sought out by other runaway slaves and fugitives. So a liberated territory was consecrated and a kind of pirate utopia blossomed, an anti-capitalist autonomous zone in the age of seventeenth century capitalist expansionism. Conflict with the Red Caribs was constant and occasionally brutal, but somewhere along the line love (or maybe just cupid) overcame differences and the flowering of the union became known as " karibena galibina" - child of the Caribe, indigenous galibi - a name which underwent some morphological fine tuning until eventually becoming Garifuna. (British colonialists who had trouble with the preponderance of foreign names confronting them as they plundered about the region just called them Black Caribs.)

Resistance was the leitmotif of this Maroon community. At the dawn of the 18th century, the Red Caribs sought support from the French to defeat them. But using intrepid guerrilla tactics, the Garifuna fought the French forces back. The sword failed, but the cross had more success, and missionaries were able to penetrate the communities. But as the Garifuna converted, their spiritual resistance was to retain their African gods within the catholic paradigm: this syncretistic religion remained, not imposed, but their own.

At the dearth of the 18th century, they fought the next colonizing force – the British - to stand-still. Facing annihilation from the sole superpower of its day, the British Empire, the Garifuna negotiated and underwent a forced deportation. Exodus brought them to the uninhabited island of Roatan off the coast of Honduras. Many died at sea, but against all odds, the rebellious Garifuna survived once more. "...

Article extract – view complete story at:

http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1195/1/

Waves

2008-02-22T11:12:00.002-04:00

Cuchulain stirred,

Stared on the horses of the sea, and heard

The cars of battle and his own name cried;

And fought with the invulnerable tide.

Yeats

Death of a Sailor...

2008-02-22T10:36:00.004-04:00

THE DEATH OF A MYSTERIOUS MARINER

HARRY D. SLEIGHT

Buried in a shady nook in Oakland Cemetery at Sag Harbor lie the remains of Favieco Maeceia, a Portuguese sailor from the Western Islands. A quaint inscription marks the grave, as follows:

"Tho' Boreas' winds and Neptune's waves,
Have tossed me to and fro.
By God's decree, you plainly see,
I'm harbored here below."

The Portuguese sailor has been dead many years, but a story is associated with the death of the mysterious mariner.

In September 1858, seven Portuguese sailors arrived in Sag Harbor. Their appearance, taken together with their movements, their lavish display of Spanish coin, the refusal to give an account of themselves, excited suspicion, and soon the village was rife with rumors of mutiny, shipwreck, and slave traders. Various and vague were the conjectures indulged in.

The strange seamen obtained good counsel and warm friendship in the person of some of their own countrymen resident of Sag Harbor. Night came on, and in the morning it was found that with but one exception, they had been taken to the Connecticut shore and safely landed by one of their own countrymen.

On the same day the strangers came to Sag Harbor, a deputy marshal from New York City passed down to Montauk. He learned that the sailors had landed on Montauk in a boat belonging to a clipper ship, and had told a story of shipwreck.

Favieco Maeceia, the man left behind, was sick unto death and passed away the following day. He left plenty of money to pay his funeral expenses, and by many it is still believed that he left a large sum of gold to the countrymen who took him in and cared for and administered to him.

Later on, it developed that a clipper bark had been sold to New York and then to a well-known Spanish house, fitted for the slave trade, and sailed to the west coast of Africa, having on board her complement of officers and crew, and two captains - one an American, the other a Spaniard. The vessel cruised off the west coat for 40 days, taking on 1,133 Negroes, and then sailed for the island of Cuba, eventually making the port of Cardenas, where two Spaniards came aboard and purchased the remaining slaves, about 200 having died on the voyage.

The bark then stood out to sea, and the captain called the crew aft and paid them off, saying the vessel had no papers, and asked what was to be done. It was decided to go to the east end of Long Island, for "we will be safe there." It was also decided to scuttle the bark.

After making Montauk Point, holes were bored in the vessel's bottom and were then plugged up. As soon as it was dark and when five miles to sea, the plugs were drawn and the officers and crew took to the boats. The bark soon sank.

One boat made for the Connecticut shore, and was picked up by a pilot boat and taken into New London. The occupants told a sorrowful tale of shipwreck and suffering, readily securing a free passage.

The other boat landed on Montauk, as told above.

From "The Whale Fishery on Long Island," published in 1931.

Awash with mystery

2008-02-22T10:00:00.004-04:00

By Mark Baker The Register-Guard

Published: February 17, 2008 09:56AM

NORTH BEND — Sandi Long takes a long, feet-first tumble down the jagged sandy cliff, her camera and bag and laughing voice sliding along with her as gravity pulls her to the beach below. “How do you get back up?” she hollers to her friend, Jim Martin, still standing on the cliff above.

“You gotta go that way,” Martin says, pointing north up the beach. “I’ll meet you in Coos Bay.”

No, you can’t just walk up to the mysterious shipwreck that the sands of time recently unveiled on the southern tip of Coos Bay’s North Spit.

To get there, you need to go west on Trans Pacific Parkway (the exit is just north of the Highway 101 bridge over Coos Bay). After about three miles and after the road has veered south, turn right and off the pavement onto a beach access road.

Then you need an orange-flagged, 4-wheel drive vehicle that can maneuver along the bumpy, twisting, turning, sandy road for a few miles. Then you need to park and walk a few hundred yards — before tumbling.

Or you could drive down on the beach at low tide, or ride there on a horse or an ATV or a motorcycle.

Thousands of curious visitors have come to see the wooden bow of the ship that could be 100 years old, maybe older. They have arrived with digital cameras and video recorders and binoculars.

Shipwrecks fascinate us.

Why?

“It’s a part of our past,” says Long, of Vancouver, Wash., who made the trek last week with Martin. “And it’s just important to remember the people who came before us and struggled. Our lives are so easy today.”

Unless you’re trying to find an old shipwreck.

“Oh, wow — a lot,” says Barb Dunham of the North Bend Information Center when asked how many people have called or stopped by, asking about the shipwreck and how to find it. “It’s just been shocking.”

Three tour buses from Portland carrying mostly senior citizens arrived recently, only to be told they couldn’t drive down there, Dunham says. “They were not very happy from what I understand,” she says. “They thought it was something you could just drive by and see.”

Visitors have until March 15 to view the wreck before the beach closes for the snowy plover breeding season.

Crowds are not what they were for the New Carissa — which, ironically, is scheduled to be dismantled by the state beginning in March — in 1999, but people are still coming from all over the state, California and Washington to see what Debbie Freeman of Salem says is “a boat. That’s all. It’s an old boat.”

Freeman may not be all that impressed but her boyfriend, Paul Smith, can’t stop running around the 35-foot-long exposed wooden bow that sits about 2½miles south of the New Carissa wreckage — nor stop wondering about it on this sunny, unseasonably warm Monday.

“It don’t look like no lumber carrier to me,” he says, referring to speculation by the Oregon Department of Parks & Recreation and the United States Bureau of Land Management. “Those square holes look like gun holes.”

Identity crisis

What this ship is, where it came from and how it got here are questions that researchers, historians and Coos Historical & Maritime Museum staff here are busy trying to answer.

“The process of narrowing down the candidates continues,” says Anne Donnelly, executive director of the museum that has erected a display of photographs of ships similar to this one, which was a steam schooner.

Could this be the 275-foot C.A. Smith, built by Kruse and Banks of North Bend in 1917, the ship that was carrying 1.5 million board feet of lumber when it ran aground on Coos Bay’s North Jetty on Dec. 16, 1923?

Or is it the George L. Olson, a ship built in San Francisco as the Ryder Hanisy that was stranded on the South Jetty in 1944?

The latter was a thought last week, but probably not since it’s been confirmed that the mystery ship was made of Douglas fir and most likely built north of San Francisco, Donnelly says.

Jack Long, 86, of North Bend (no relation to Sandi Long), says the ship is the same one he saw here on the beach in the 1950s. Then, he and his father, Les Long, and his uncle, George Long, rowed across the bay and hiked over the dunes and came upon the bow of the wooden ship that Jack Long swears had “George E. Long” carved into it, the same name as his uncle. What are the odds? “It stuck in my head,” he says. “If it had been Harry Long ...”

Asked about a George E. Long ship, Donnelly can only mention the George L. Olson.

The exposed bow of the ship here, revealed after some of the harshest winter winds and rains in years, appears to be the same ship that appeared in 1948 and 1960, says Steve Samuels, a cultural resource specialist for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

Identifying the ship is a matter of searching through the thousands of photographs of ships built in the area between 1850 and 1950, says Samuels, who is working with Donnelly and Calum Stevenson, coastal coordinator of the Oregon Department of Parks & Recreation. They are also looking at construction records of ships, with help from the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Marine Heritage Program, Samuels says.

The ship was most likely a lumber carrier, he says, because it appears that decking on the back of the bow disappears into the sand, indicating that it’s a lower deck that would have been used to slide logs off at ports.

And what happens when, or if, it is identified?

“Then it will have a name and a story to document,” says Samuels, who adds that in his 11 years with the BLM, he has not seen an old ship reveal itself like this before. But he suspects the sand will cover it up again and it will be exposed again some other time for another generation.

“It’s nice that people are interested in its history,” he says. “They should go out and respect it. But they should only leave their footprints. Regardless of which (ship) it is, it’s tied back to a lot of history in Coos Bay.”

“Lure of the unknown”

Giant nails stick out of the reddish-brown schooner’s bow. Big, rusted metal pipes sit within it. There are two old, skinny metal bed frames.

It’s early afternoon and the tide is rolling in, closer and closer. White, foamy waves crash against the ship’s remains. A mast, which looks like an old, dead tree trunk that’s been struck by lightning, sticks up in the middle.

“I’ve lived here my whole life,” says David Laird, 62, staring down at the shipwreck from the newly formed cliffs of jagged chunks of receding sand and logs. “I didn’t know it was here.

“The mystery of it all,” he says, explaining what has brought him out on this day. “The lure of the unknown. What happened?”

Don Hall has finally found his way here, after driving up and down the sandy road.

“I’ve always been interested in shipwrecks,” says Hall, of North Bend, a commercial fisherman who spends half the year in Alaska. He says he worked for a salvage company in Dutch Harbor, Alaska. “I don’t think we ever saw anything this old,” he says. “Everything we worked on was steel.”

Hall guesses the ship was built between 1860 and 1890. “I don’t know, I’m just guessing,” he says.

A group of ATVs and motorcycles zooms up, including a Coos County Sheriff’s deputy on an ATV. A Sheriff’s Department beach ranger appears in her white pickup.

Six men appear and dance upon the bow.

Two young women arrive on the edge of the cliff, cell phones in their hands. They slide down. One of them, a blonde wearing a black Billabong T-shirt, runs to beat the tide. She touches the wooden bow, then sprints back to a log near the edge of the cliff.

“You didn’t even get your picture taken!” her friend says.

“I don’t care!” the woman says. “I just wanted to touch it — that’s all!”

Wooden ships out of water

Could one of these Coos Bay-area shipwrecks be the one found recently on the North Spit?

Jan. 3, 1852: The Captain Lincoln took on water and ran ashore north of the bay entrance. It was bringing supplies to military outposts in the Oregon Territory.

Oct. 20, 1896: This 207-foot, 947-ton ship built in San Francisco in 1885 to haul coal was stranded on the Coos Bay bar after it struck a submerged portion of the jetty and sank. Thirteen of the 37 aboard died. Originally called the Emily, it wrecked in the same spot in 1891 with one fatality.

1907: The four-masted schooner Novelty, launched from San Francisco in 1886 as the world’s first four-masted bald head schooner, navigated the globe before running aground on Southern Oregon sand dunes. The crew, captain and his family all walked ashore.

March 23, 1909: The four-masted schooner Marconi, built in North Bend in 1902, sailed the world’s oceans before running aground on the South Spit as it attempted to leave for Chile.

Feb. 16, 1913: The three-masted, 431-ton wooden schooner Advent was stranded on the South Spit of the bar. A crew of eight was rescued.

Nov. 2, 1915: The schooner Santa Clara was on its way from Astoria to San Francisco when it got caught in a storm and washed onto Coos Bay’s South Spit. Fourteen people died when a lifeboat capsized while the passengers were trying to make it ashore.

Dec. 16, 1923: The 1,878-ton steamer C.A. Smith, built by North Bend’s Kruse and Banks in 1917, ran aground on the bar. Four members of the crew of 14 died.

Sept. 7, 1932: The 912-ton steamer Fort Bragg was stranded at the bar.

1940: The four-masted schooner North Bend II was the last tall ship built in Oregon about 1920. It was abandoned on Peacock Spit at the Columbia River’s entrance in 1928. Thirteen months later it floated away and sank off Guana Rock at Coos Bay.

Sources: www.shipwreckregistry.com; www.tallshipsofsanfrancisco.com

Danger

Not only can it be treacherous to view the shipwreck on Coos Bay’s North Spit because of sneaker waves, the Coos County Sheriff’s Office and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management remind visitors to admire it and respect it, but do not climb on it or take pieces from it. It’s against the law to remove, damage or deface any archaeological resource found on public land, according to the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979. You must also have an orange-flagged, 4-wheel drive vehicle to drive along the dune access road, or an off-road permit to drive on the beach.

SHIPWRECK NEWS

2008-02-11T11:38:00.000-04:00

Whatever happened to ... the sailor who survived the Marine Electric disaster?

Bob Cusick is "still kicking." That's no small feat for any man about to turn 85. It's especially notable when you are one of only three sailors to survive what was among the nation's worst maritime disasters.

Tuesday will mark the 25th anniversary of the sinking of the coal ship Marine Electric in a blizzard off Chincoteague. Thirty-one sailors died.

Cusick was the ship's chief mate. He still has nightmares about how the rusted relic of World War II rolled before the crew could launch its lifeboats. He can still feel the water swallowing him and hear the men screaming for help in the darkness.
But the nightmares aren't as frequent now.

"It's really been a long time," he said from his home in New Hampshire. "And evidently, a lot of good came from that ship's sinking."

Most of it because of Cusick and the other two survivors' testimonies.

As a result of this accident, and the detailed records of neglect Cusick kept, the Coast Guard launched its renowned rescue swimmers program. Ships sailing in cold waters are required to provide survival suits to their crews; safety inspections are more rigorous; lifeboats must have better launching systems; and rafts must have boarding platforms to allow freezing sailors to climb inside.

The Marine Electric was what mariners call a rust bucket. Its huge cargo hatches were warped, wasted away and patched cosmetically with putty and duct tape. The deck was cracked, and the hull even had a hole punched through by a bulldozer.
Still, inspectors cleared it to sail, and it routinely hauled pulverized coal from Norfolk to a power plant near Boston.

Its last trip was into the teeth of a violent nor'easter. The aging ship was no match for the weather. For more than 24 hours, the Marine Electric was battered by swells that stretched 40 feet from trough to crest.

For part of the trip, the ship had been diverted to escort a trawler into Chincoteague.
Not long after resuming its course, the Marine Electric started taking on water.
Seas crashing over those corroded decks rushed inside the hatches, mixing with the powdered coal to create an unstable slurry.

The water couldn't be pumped out, because the ship's owners had welded covers over the drain holes.

Cusick was lucky. He had just come off watch and was wearing an insulated coat his wife had insisted he buy and a raw wool cap she had knitted for him. They would eventually make the difference between life and death.

Cusick swam for an hour in the tempest before finding a swamped lifeboat. He climbed inside and wedged himself beneath the seats, slipping under the 37-degree water, to escape the howling winds. He gasped for breaths between waves.

Cusick found strength in a song about the shipwreck of the Mary Ellen Carter, and folksinger Stan Rogers' refrain to "rise again, rise again."
Cusick would spend 2 hours and 45 minutes in the frigid water, nearly double what Navy survival charts claimed was possible.

It was after dawn when a Coast Guard helicopter from Elizabeth City, N.C., running on fumes, dropped a basket into his lifeboat and Cusick was hoisted to safety.
After testifying against his company, Cusick spent four more years at sea, then moved to New Hampshire and sold real estate. Recently he's had circulation problems, even lost a few toes.

His wife Bea is sure it's related to the time in the frigid ocean.

On Feb. 24, The Weather Channel will tell the Marine Electric's tale as part of its series on storms that changed history.

As for Cusick, the lifelong mariner said he steers clear of small motor boats and large ships, and "I wouldn't make a cruise for all the tea in China."

Tony Germanotta, (757) 222-5113, tony.germanotta@pilotonline.com

Published on HamptonRoads.com | PilotOnline.com (http://hamptonroads.com)

up from under

2008-02-01T12:12:00.000-04:00

Wrecked schooner drifts ashore and into mystery

Wooden pegs lined The ribs on the remains of a 19th-century schooner that washed up onto Newcomb Hollow Beach on Cape Cod. (Boston Globe Photo / Vincen Dewitt )

By Andrew Ryan and Jonathan Saltzman Globe Staff / February 1, 2008

WELLFLEET - The 50 feet of hand-cut oak ribs had probably been swallowed by the sea more than a century ago, the remnants of a schooner lost with some 1,500 other ships that have sunk in the unpredictable waters off Cape Cod.

But a violent storm this week churned history up off the sandy, ocean floor, spitting the remains of the 19th-century shipwreck onto Newcomb Hollow Beach.

The timbers and planks, held together by wooden pegs, offer a glimpse of the golden age of the schooner, when hundreds of sails dotted the horizon here as ships transported lumber, granite, and coal. Poking up like the bones of a mighty whale, the wreckage has become a magnet pulling the curious onto the frigid beach, where frozen sand crunched underfoot.

"It's unbelievable," said Anneliese Barrio, 74, who brought her 4-year-old grandson, Jack, bundled in mittens and a knit wool cap. "The storm had to be wicked rough to bring this in."

The wreckage has set this sleepy beach town abuzz with speculation about the name of the vessel and the story behind its demise. Was it a majestic, three-mast schooner that sailed shortly after the Civil War? Or a worn, wooden barge, stripped of its masts, brimming with coal that sank in the late 1800s?

"We don't even know whether the crew was rescued from the ship," said Helen Purcell, the town historian who has lived in Wellfleet for nearly 50 years.

These questions will probably never be answered.

The National Park Service, which has jurisdiction over the schooner because it landed on the Cape Cod National Seashore, has examined, photographed, and mapped the wreckage.

Like the remains of most old ships that are blown ashore, the debris will now be left to the whims of the tide.

"It will probably either be buried by sand or get washed out again," said William Burke, a historian with the Cape Cod National Seashore who examined the remains. "Theoretically, it could be gone tomorrow."

The same storm Monday that pushed the schooner ashore sent a 9-foot rudder that had been embedded in the sand off Truro back to sea.

But even if the ship raises more questions than it answers, it helps foster interest in the region's maritime past.

"This is exciting for the people who live here now," Burke said. "It is kind of a chance to connect with shipping history. It's evocative."

Newcomb Hollow, empty most winter months, saw as much activity as it would on a balmy, summer day.

The lot was full, children peered at the wreck, and dogs scampered along the sand.

Les Greenberg heard about the find on his car radio and drove straight to Wellfleet.

"I'm really interested in this stuff," said Greenberg, a 57-year-old from Orleans who had his hands jammed in his jacket pockets.

He toyed with the idea of grabbing a souvenir, but thought better of it. "It looks like someone would scream," Greenberg said.

Jack Barrio, the 4-year-old who had come with his grandmother, did not have the same inhibitions. He grabbed an 18-inch piece of timber and handed it to his grandmother, who tucked it under her arm as the pair trudged back up the dune to their car.

Ranger Stephen Prokop met them in the parking lot and took back the souvenir, causing Jack to burst into tears.

"These artifacts represent history," Prokop explained later. "The wood peg and the timber here indicates that this is probably over 100 years old."

That is why Charles Frazier, a burly firefighter from Eastham, made the trip to see the wreckage. "I wanted to check it out before it was gone."

Ryan can be reached at acryan@globe.com; Saltzman at jsaltzman@globe.com.

Yet another gallery of SW

2008-01-30T06:37:00.000-04:00

Time

2007-06-13T13:54:00.000-03:00

Such are the pitiless waves of time, such the deleterious effects of passing, indifferent tempests.

Washed upon ever further shores, among our swamped possessions and general wreckage. A chance to remember that the lighter we fall into the water the better we float, and perhaps more likely to glimpse another dawn, over the sea, cold, shivering, exhausted, but alive.

A long time, in which opening your mouth meant only filling it with salty water, but here you are, coughing, retching, spitting it out… another storm survived. Tomorrow a search along the beach may reveal what else has made it through the squall.

The Song Of The Derelict

2007-04-19T12:57:00.000-03:00

Ye have sung me your songs, ye have chanted your rimes
(I scorn your beguiling, O sea!)
Ye fondle me now, but to strike me betimes.
(A treacherous lover, the sea!)
Once I saw as I lay, half-awash in the night
A hull in the gloom -- a quick hail -- and a light
And I lurched o'er to leeward and saved her for spite
From the doom that ye meted to me.

I was sister to `Terrible', seventy-four,
(Yo ho! for the swing of the sea!)
And ye sank her in fathoms a thousand or more
(Alas! for the might of the sea!)
Ye taunt me and sing me her fate for a sign!
What harm can ye wreak more on me or on mine?
Ho braggart! I care not for boasting of thine --
A fig for the wrath of the sea!

Some night to the lee of the land I shall steal,
(Heigh-ho to be home from the sea!)
No pilot but Death at the rudderless wheel,
(None knoweth the harbor as he!)
To lie where the slow tide creeps hither and fro
And the shifting sand laps me around, for I know
That my gallant old crew are in Port long ago --
For ever at peace with the sea!

John McCrae

2007-04-17T07:00:00.000-03:00

She's a derelict, and has been floating round, by the look of her, for many a score of years. Look at the shape of her counter, and the bows and cutwater. She's as old as the hills, as you might say, and ought to have gone down to Davy Jones a good while ago. Look at the growths on her, and the thickness of her standing rigging; that's all salt encrustations, I fancy, if you notice the white colour. She's been a small barque; but, don't you see, she's not a yard left aloft. They've all dropped out of the slings; everything rotted away; wonder the standing rigging hasn't gone, too

The derelict

By WILLIAM HOPE HODGSON

from The Red Magazine (1912-dec-01)

http://gaslight.mtroyal.ca/derelict.htm

2007-04-13T12:46:00.000-03:00

Spring Sea, David Ayres

To whom it may concern: It is springtime. It is late afternoon.

Kurt Vonnegut

Lovers on Aran

2007-01-05T18:14:00.000-04:00

The timeless waves,
bright, sifting, broken glass,
Came dazzling around, into the rocks,
Came glinting, sifting from the Americas
To posess Aran. Or did Aran rush
to throw wide arms of rock around a tide
That yielded with an ebb, with a soft crash?
Did sea define the land or land the sea?
Each drew new meaning from the waves' collision.
Sea broke on land to full identity.

Seamus Heaney

Song of the Sea

2006-12-16T17:47:00.000-04:00

Attilio Canale

(Capri, Piccola Marina)

Timeless sea breezes,
sea-wind of the night:
you come for no one;
if someone should wake,
he must be prepared
how to survive you.
Timeless sea breezes,
that for aeons have
blown ancient rocks,
you are purest space
coming from afar...
Oh, how a fruit-bearing
fig tree feels your coming
high up in the moonlight.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming

Bones

2006-12-16T16:49:00.000-04:00

Herbert Bayer

Sling me under the sea.
Pack me down in the salt and wet.
No farmer’s plow shall touch my bones.
No Hamlet hold my jaws and speak
How jokes are gone and empty is my mouth.
Long, green-eyed scavengers shall pick my eyes,
Purple fish play hide-and-seek,
And I shall be song of thunder,
crash of sea,
Down on the floors of salt and wet.
Sling me … under the sea.

Carl Sandburg

Sea Longing

2006-12-02T12:35:00.000-04:00

A thousand miles beyond this sun-steeped wall
Somewhere the waves creep cool along the sand,
The ebbing tide forsakes the listless land
With the old murmur, long and musical;
The windy waves mount up and curve and fall,
And round the rocks the foam blows up like snow,
-- Tho' I am inland far, I hear and know,
For I was born the sea's eternal thrall.
I would that I were there and over me
The cold insistence of the tide would roll,
Quenching this burning thing men call the soul,
-- Then with the ebbing I should drift and be
Less than the smallest shell along the shoal,
Less than the sea-gulls calling to the sea.

Sara Teasdale

At Sea

2006-11-30T12:46:00.000-04:00

'Farewell and adieu' was the burden prevailing
Long since in the chant of a home-faring crew;
And the heart in us echoes, with laughing or wailing,
Farewell and adieu.

Each year that we live shall we sing it anew,
With a water untravelled before us for sailing
And a water behind us that wrecks may bestrew.

The stars of the past and the beacons are paling,
The heavens and the waters are hoarier of hue:
But the heart in us chants not an all unavailing
Farewell and adieu.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Aboard at a ship's helm

2006-11-05T13:06:00.000-04:00

ABOARD, at a ship’s helm,
A young steersman, steering with care.

A bell through fog on a sea-coast dolefully ringing,
An ocean-bell-O a warning bell, rock’d by the waves.

O you give good notice indeed, you bell by the sea-reefs ringing,
Ringing, ringing, to warn the ship from its wreck-place.

For, as on the alert, O steersman, you mind the bell’s admonition,
The bows turn,—the freighted ship, tacking, speeds away under her gray sails,
The beautiful and noble ship, with all her precious wealth, speeds away gaily and safe.

But O the ship, the immortal ship! O ship aboard the ship!
O ship of the body—ship of the soul—voyaging, voyaging, voyaging.

Walt Whitman

Wings

2006-11-03T10:06:00.000-04:00

http://pedraapedra.weblog.com.pt/arquivo/1060851141_angel_sea2.jpg

"Between the past and the present was an ineffable abyss. But imagination has the wings of an angel of light and travels safely through or over the seas where we have been almost shipwrecked, the darkness in which our illusions are lost, the precipice whence our happiness has been hurled and swallowed up."

Alexandre Dumas – Twenty Years After

Gallery IV

2006-10-29T16:10:00.000-04:00

Blue

2006-10-17T18:53:00.000-03:00

JOHANA

Then, tell me a story.

JACQUES

Uh... Ah! A story? He turns around and sits on the window sill, his feetdangling in mid air. He looks at the sea, seeking inspiration.

JACQUES

Do you know how it is? (starting again) Do you know what you're supposed to do to meet a mermaid?

JOHANA

(with a smile) No... tell me.

JACQUES

You go down to the bottom of the sea, where the water isn't even blue anymore, where the sky is only a memory... and you float there, quietly, quietly and stay there... and you decide that you will die for them... Only then do they start coming out. They come and greet you and they judge the love you have for them... If it's sincere. If it's pure... They will be with you and take you away forever.

Luc Besson

The Sea

2006-10-16T19:27:00.000-03:00

"There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath; like those fabled undulations of the Ephesian sod over the buried Evangelist St. John. And meet it is, that over these sea-pastures, wide-rolling watery prairies and Potter's Fields of all four continents, the waves should rise and fall, and ebb and flow unceasingly; for here, millions of mixed shades and shadows, drowned dreams, somnambulisms, reveries; all that we call lives and souls, lie dreaming, dreaming, still; tossing like slumberers in their beds; the ever-rolling waves but made so by their restlessness."

Herman Melville
Moby Dick --Chapter 111 (The Pacific)

Sirens

2006-10-16T16:46:00.000-03:00

Bronze by gold, Miss Douce's head by Miss Kennedy's head, over the crossblind of the Ormond bar heard the viceregal hoofs go by, ringing steel. -- Is that her? asked Miss Kennedy.
Miss Douce said yes, sitting with his ex, pearl grey and eau de Nil.
-- Exquisite contrast, Miss Kennedy said.
When all agog Miss Douce said eagerly:
-- Look at the fellow in the tall silk.
-- Who? Where? gold asked more eagerly.
-- In the second carriage, Miss Douce's wet lips said, laughing in the sun. He's looking. Mind till I see.
She darted, bronze, to the backmost corner, flattening her face against the pane in a halo of hurried breath.
Her wet lips tittered:
-- He's killed looking back.
She laughed:
-- O wept! Aren't men frightful idiots?
With sadness.
Miss Kennedy sauntered sadly from bright light, twining a loose hair behind an ear. Sauntering sadly, gold no more, she twisted twined a hair. Sadly she twined in sauntering gold hair behind a curving ear.
-- It's them has the fine times, sadly then she said.

James Joyce- Ulysses, Ch. 11-

Sinbad by Paul Klee

2006-10-13T20:47:00.000-03:00

Becalmed at sea

2006-10-13T20:25:00.000-03:00

Deepest silence rules the waters,
Not a motion stirs the sea,
And the sailor views the glassy
Surface so uneasily.
Not a breeze from any quarter,
Dreadful silence, still as death.
In the vast, appalling distance
Not a ripple shows itself.

Goethe

http://members.aol.com/abelard2/goethe.htm

The Silence of the Sirens

2006-10-04T13:42:00.000-03:00

Proof that inadequate, even childish measures, may serve to rescue one from peril.

To protect himself from the Sirens Ulysses stopped his ears with wax and had himself bound to the mast of his ship. Naturally any and every traveller before him could have done the same, except those whom the Sirens allured even from a great distance; but it was known to all the world that such things were of no help whatever. The song of the Sirens could pierce through everything, and the longing of those they seduced would have broken far stronger bonds than chains and masts. But Ulysses did not think of that, although he had probably heard of it. He trusted absolutely to his handful of wax and his fathom of chain, and in innocent elation over his little stratagem sailed out to meet the Sirens.

Now the Sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence. And though admittedly such a thing has never happened, still it is conceivable that someone might possibly have escaped from their singing; but from their silence certainly never. Against the feeling of having triumphed over them by one's own strength, and the consequent exaltation that bears down everything before it, no earthly powers could have remained intact.

And when Ulysses approached them the potent songstresses actually did not sing, whether because they thought that this enemy could be vanquished only by their silence, or because of the look of bliss on the face of Ulysses, who was thinking of nothing but his wax and his chains, made them forget their singing.

But Ulysses, if one may so express it, did not hear their silence; he thought they were singing and that he alone did not hear them. For a fleeting moment he saw their throats rising and falling, their breasts lifting, their eyes filled with tears, their lips half-parted, but believed that these were accompaniments to the airs which died unheard around him. Soon, however, all this faded from his sight as he fixed his gaze on the distance, the Sirens literally vanished before his resolution, and at the very moment when they were nearest to him he knew of them no longer.

But they--lovelier than ever--stretched their necks and turned, let their cold hair flutter free in the wind, and forgetting everything clung with their claws to the rocks. They no longer had any desire to allure; all that they wanted was to hold as long as they could the radiance that fell from Ulysses' great eyes.

If the Sirens had possessed consciousness they would have been annihilated at that moment. But they remained as they had been; all that had happened was that Ulysses had escaped them.

A codicil to the foregoing has also been handed down. Ulysses, it is said, was so full of guile, was such a fox, that not even the goddess of fate could pierce his armour. Perhaps he had really noticed, although here the human understanding is beyond its depths, that the Sirens were silent, and opposed the afore-mentioned pretence to them and the gods merely as a sort of shield.

Kafka

From http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~n9648471/kafka/ksilence.html

A Sea Spell

2006-10-04T07:25:00.000-03:00

Her lute hangs shadowed in the apple-tree,
While flashing fingers weave the sweet-strung spell
Between its chords; and as the wild notes swell,
The sea-bird for those branches leaves the sea.
But to what sound her listening ear stoops she?
What netherworld gulf-whispers doth she hear,
In answering echoes from what planisphere,
Along the wind, along the estuary?
She sinks into her spell: and when full soon
Her lips move and she soars into her song,
What creatures of the midmost main shall throng
In furrowed self-clouds to the summoning rune,
Till he, the fated mariner, hears her cry,
And up her rock, bare breasted, comes to die?

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Yet another G of SW...

2006-09-04T18:59:00.000-03:00

Storm

2006-09-03T12:18:00.000-03:00

Winds blowing in off the stormy sea,
Sea Gulls fighting the elements raw.
A sight to fascinate all that see,
This most fearsome chaos on the sea-shore.
Boats pitching and tossing on each breaking wave,
It seemed there was nothing that they could save.
Storm clouds ruled the Heavens that night,
Fearsome the thunder and lightning bright.
Rains flooding the land at a breathless pace,
Each drop falling into its chaotic place,
A night to remember with dreadful awe,
As the storm swept over the sea-shore.

Shaw

Another perilous sea by Poe

2006-09-03T09:43:00.000-03:00

" I looked dizzily, and beheld a wide expanse of ocean, whose waters wore so inky a hue as to bring at once to my mind the Nubian geographer's account of the Mare Tenebrarum. A panorama more deplorably desolate no human imagination can conceive. To the right and left, as far as the eye could reach, there lay outstretched, like ramparts of the world, lines of horridly black and beetling cliff, whose character of gloom was but the more forcibly illustrated by the surf which reared high up against it its white and ghastly crest, howling and shrieking for ever. Just opposite the promontory upon whose apex we were placed, and at a distance of some five or six miles out at sea, there was visible a small, bleak-looking island; or, more properly, its position was discernible through the wilderness of surge in which it was enveloped. About two miles nearer the land, arose another of smaller size, hideously craggy and barren, and encompassed at various intervals by a cluster of dark rocks. The appearance of the ocean, in the space between the more distant island and the shore, had something very unusual about it. Although, at the time, so strong a gale was blowing landward that a brig in the remote offing lay to under a double-reefed trysail, and constantly plunged her whole hull out of sight, still there was here nothing like a regular swell, but only a short, quick, angry cross dashing of water in every direction --as well in the teeth of the wind as otherwise. Of foam there was little except in the immediate vicinity of the rocks. "The island in the distance," resumed the old man, "is called by the Norwegians Vurrgh. The one midway is Moskoe. That a mile to the northward is Ambaaren. Yonder are Iflesen, Hoeyholm, Kieldholm, Suarven, and Buckholm. Farther off --between Moskoe and Vurrgh --are Otterholm, Flimen, Sandflesen, and Skarholm. These are the true names of the places --but why it has been thought necessary to name them at all, is more than either you or I can understand. Do you hear any thing? Do you see any change in the water?" We had now been about ten minutes upon the top of Helseggen, to which we had ascended from the interior of Lofoden, so that we had caught no glimpse of the sea until it had burst upon us from the summit. As the old man spoke, I became aware of a loud and gradually increasing sound, like the moaning of a vast herd of buffaloes upon an American prairie; and at the same moment I perceived that what seamen term the chopping character of the ocean beneath us, was rapidly changing into a current which set to the eastward. Even while I gazed, this current acquired a monstrous velocity. Each moment added to its speed --to its headlong impetuosity. In five minutes the whole sea, as far as Vurrgh, was lashed into ungovernable fury; but it was between Moskoe and the coast that the main uproar held its sway. Here the vast bed of the waters, seamed and scarred into a thousand conflicting channels, burst suddenly into phrensied convulsion --heaving, boiling, hissing --gyrating in gigantic and innumerable vortices, and all whirling and plunging on to the eastward with a rapidity which water never elsewhere assumes except in precipitous descents. In a few minutes more, there came over the scene another radical alteration. The general surface grew somewhat more smooth, and the whirlpools, one by one, disappeared, while prodigious streaks of foam became apparent where none had been seen before. These streaks, at length, spreading out to a great distance, and entering into combination, took unto themselves the gyratory motion of the subsided vortices, and seemed to form the germ of another more vast. Suddenly --very suddenly --this assumed a distinct and definite existence, in a circle of more than half a mile in diameter. The edge of the whirl was represented by a broad belt of gleaming spray; but no particle of this slipped into the mouth of the terrific funnel, whose interior, as far as the eye could fathom it, was a smooth, shining, and jet-black wall of water, inclined to the horizon at an angle of some forty-five degrees, speeding dizzily round and round with a swaying and sweltering motion, and sending forth to the winds an appalling voice, half shriek, half roar, such as not even the mighty cataract of Niagara ever lifts up in its agony to Heaven. The mountain trembled to its very base, and the rock rocked. I threw myself upon my face, and clung to the scant herbage in an excess of nervous agitation. "

Poe, A descent into the Maelstrom

Storms at sea I

2006-09-03T07:03:00.000-03:00

"One evening, leaning over the taffrail, I observed a very singular, isolated cloud, to the N.W. It was remarkable, as well for its color, as from its being the first we had seen since our departure from Batavia. I watched it attentively until sunset, when it spread all at once to the eastward and westward, girting in the horizon with a narrow strip of vapor, and looking like a long line of low beach. My notice was soon afterwards attracted by the dusky-red appearance of the moon, and the peculiar character of the sea. The latter was undergoing a rapid change, and the water seemed more than usually transparent. Although I could distinctly see the bottom, yet, heaving the lead, I found the ship in fifteen fathoms. The air now became intolerably hot, and was loaded with spiral exhalations similar to those arising from heat iron. As night came on, every breath of wind died away, an more entire calm it is impossible to conceive. The flame of a candle burned upon the poop without the least perceptible motion, and a long hair, held between the finger and thumb, hung without the possibility of detecting a vibration. However, as the captain said he could perceive no indication of danger, and as we were drifting in bodily to shore, he ordered the sails to be furled, and the anchor let go. No watch was set, and the crew, consisting principally of Malays, stretched themselves deliberately upon deck. I went below --not without a full presentiment of evil. Indeed, every appearance warranted me in apprehending a Simoom. I told the captain my fears; but he paid no attention to what I said, and left me without deigning to give a reply. My uneasiness, however, prevented me from sleeping, and about midnight I went upon deck. --As I placed my foot upon the upper step of the companion-ladder, I was startled by a loud, humming noise, like that occasioned by the rapid revolution of a mill-wheel, and before I could ascertain its meaning, I found the ship quivering to its centre. In the next instant, a wilderness of foam hurled us upon our beam-ends, and, rushing over us fore and aft, swept the entire decks from stem to stern. The extreme fury of the blast proved, in a great measure, the salvation of the ship. Although completely water-logged, yet, as her masts had gone by the board, she rose, after a minute, heavily from the sea, and, staggering awhile beneath the immense pressure of the tempest, finally righted. By what miracle I escaped destruction, it is impossible to say. Stunned by the shock of the water, I found myself, upon recovery, jammed in between the stern-post and rudder. With great difficulty I gained my feet, and looking dizzily around, was, at first, struck with the idea of our being among breakers; so terrific, beyond the wildest imagination, was the whirlpool of mountainous and foaming ocean within which we were engulfed. After a while, I heard the voice of an old Swede, who had shipped with us at the moment of our leaving port. I hallooed to him with all my strength, and presently he came reeling aft. We soon discovered that we were the sole survivors of the accident. All on deck, with the exception of ourselves, had been swept overboard; --the captain and mates must have perished as they slept, for the cabins were deluged with water. Without assistance, we could expect to do little for the security of the ship, and our exertions were at first paralyzed by the momentary expectation of going down. Our cable had, of course, parted like pack-thread, at the first breath of the hurricane, or we should have been instantaneously overwhelmed."

Poe, Ms. in a Bottle

Merry gentlemen of the sea...

2006-08-13T19:14:00.000-03:00

We were schooner-rigged and rakish, with a long and lissome hull,
And we flew the pretty colours of the crossbones and the skull;
We'd a big black Jolly Roger flapping grimly at the fore,
And we sailed the Spanish Water in the happy days of yore.

We'd a long brass gun amidships, like a well-conducted ship,
We had each a brace of pistols and a cutlass at the hip;
It's a point which tells against us, and a fact to be deplored,
But we chased the goodly merchant-men and laid their ships aboard.
Then the dead men fouled the scuppers and the wounded filled the chains,
And the paint-work all was spatter dashed with other peoples brains,

She was boarded, she was looted, she was scuttled till she sank.
And the pale survivors left us by the medium of the plank.
O! then it was (while standing by the taffrail on the poop)
We could hear the drowning folk lament the absent chicken coop;
Then, having washed the blood away, we'd little else to do
Than to dance a quiet hornpipe as the old salts taught us to.

O! the fiddle on the fo'c'sle, and the slapping naked soles,
And the genial "Down the middle, Jake, and curtsey when she rolls!"
With the silver seas around us and the pale moon overhead,
And the look-out not a-looking and his pipe-bowl glowing red.
Ah! the pig-tailed, quidding pirates and the pretty pranks we played,
All have since been put a stop to by the naughty Board of Trade;
The schooners and the merry crews are laid away to rest,
A little south the sunset in the islands of the Blest.

A Ballad of John Silver, by John Masefield

Another Gallery of Shipwrecks

2006-08-08T17:13:00.000-03:00

SWD IV - Of Law and Literature & Distasteful Dinners

2006-08-08T15:12:00.000-03:00

In SWD II refrence was made to a case of criminal prosecution due to murder and canibalism in the context of shipwreck, as the first case in which "state of necesity" was argued as defence.

Though the information gap pained me, leaving too much to memory’s tendency to “reconstruct” facts according to fancy, I have been too lazy to do the necessary legal research.

However, as is often the case, literature came to the rescue in the form of Rudyard Kipling’s The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes. Mr. Jukes, a pretty disagreeable Engineer serving in India, in dire straits of his own (heartily deserved, as far as I’m concerned) likens his situation to that of the sailors of the Mignonette.

“A new shipwreck” thought I, and looking it up found a similar case to the aforementioned. Rather too similar to be ignored, I’m afraid.

Here goes one of many accounts available on the internet (I chose this one for succinctness and the legal quote). A more extensive and entertaining version - “Eating Research Assistants is Wrong”- can be perused at:

http://www.soc.soton.ac.uk/OTHERS/CSMS/OCHAL/mign.htm#Who%20am%20I?#Who%20am%20I?

“The Mignonette Survivors from 1884.

Driven by hunger to become cannibals, this was a case which became a key precedent on the issue of necessity. Can an individual or individuals kill to ensure survival? Dudley and Stephens, two survivors of a wrecked yacht, killed a dying companion in order to preserve their own lives. In law, they were guilty of murder - but was there any justification for such a ghastly act? The Mignonette was a yawl-rigged yacht which sailed from Tollesbury in Essex. Despite being found guilty and receiving the mandatory sentence of death, the Queen commuted the penalty to six months' imprisonment without hard labour.

Law students have to study the Mignonette case when covering issues and defences of criminal responsibility.

R v Dudley and Stephens reported in 1884 is described as concerning three men, X1, X2 and W and a boy, Y escaping from shipwreck in an open boat. After eighteen days without food Y was killed by X1, with the agreement of X2 and eaten by X1, X2, and W. Four days later they were rescued. X1 and X2 were indicted and convicted for the murder of Y. In defence, they raised the probability that, without having eaten Y, they would have died of starvation.

The defence failed. Chief Justice Coleridge ruled:

'The temptation to the act which existed here was not what the law has ever called necessity. Nor is this to be regretted. Though law and morality are not the same,...yet the absolute divorce of law from morality would be of fatal consequence; and such divorce would follow if the temptation to murder in this case were to be held by law an absolute defence of it. It is not so.' "

Credit due to: www.throughthenight.co.uk

SWD III

2006-07-14T18:40:00.000-03:00

Of the many themes shipwreck encompasses or alludes to, one is obviously the shady, complex border between “civilization” and beyond. Shipwreck clearly places man on the verge of society, a place where rules purport to prime over what is generally termed “instinct”. Aggressiveness and sexual desire, to mention the most obvious, are curtailed by a complex series of norms that often go way beyond strict rational egotistical behaviour (as in any line of individualistic liberalism). For instance, most people do not kill their boss o that insufferable next door neighbour, much as many often deserve a grisly end. This is probably due not only in order to avoid prison, but also because they do not seriously consider murder an acceptable alternative in social intercourse.

However, SW is precisely a case in which social norms can o “may” be suspended. The paradigmatic life boat is a good place to begin.

Picture a storm in the south seas circa 1780. No radio, no telegraph, no news of any other ship for hundreds of miles around. In this case, no hope of reaching land for a long time, if and when the boat keeps afloat.

A crowded little dinghy with one man too many (a favourite utilitarian theme, in passing). Is it licit to chuck the extra guy overboard, thus ensuring the rest a better chance of survival? And in that case, whom shall we chuck? For some (notably the earlier mentioned Utilitarians) it is morally admissible for the few to be sacrificed for the many (and, as I understand it, not only in state of need situations).

For others there is really no moral issue at all, or, stretching the definition a bit further than language seems to permit, the rules of survival reign (a way of acknowledging the superiority of the species over the individual, a pretty clear cut “law of nature”).

Getting back to that solitary life boat, imagine days going by due to good floatability and seamanship, suddenly a grimmer prospect than drowning could be starvation.

As anyone who has witnessed a wedding feast knows, people get edgy when hungry, and tend to lose the grip on their manners. Fellow man might be the bastard who makes it first to that lobster. The image of prosperous, well fed adults charging at the cold meats and flinging themselves indecorously at the salmon is damning.

Picture that life boat, buffeted by the waves… there is still a small reserve of drinking water, and after days of harsh rationing, the last morsel of food is long gone. The rough companionship of fears begins to slowly recede. Hunger sets each man apart. Suddenly, the chubby cabin boy, who will probably never make it anyway, begins to resemble a leg of ham, as the pitiless sun blurs your sight and the pains of starvation bite into your gut.

A case such as this was once put before the Chamber of the Lords. (Unfortunately I cannot remember the reference). I will not, however, forget the Lord’s final holding. But first, the facts.

Taking up where we left off, exit chubby cabin boy after unseemly scuffle, and, against all probability, not 24 hours later, ship on the horizon. Needless to say the news breaks out and charges are brought on return to London.

In the memorable words of the Chief Justice, however dire the circumstances, before resorting to murder “…they should have died like good English sailors. …”. That´s the stuff empires are made of! Naturally, as long a you understand that the rule does not apply to the “natives”.

Another interesting case of hunger was, this time, not the consequence but the cause of shipwreck.

Starving castaways on Circe’s island, Odysseus’ men languish in view of the healthy herd of Zeus Circe has vowed to protect. As can be surmised, while Odysseus slept, the men decided to defy the Gods rather than starve. Before the smell of roast meat had melted away, a ship had appeared and the hapless lot were on the way to Neptune’s vengeance. Only Odysseus survived, on a raft we will return to, of course.

SWD II

2006-06-22T19:39:00.000-03:00

Diaries are naturally destined to be read only by their authors, at least during the writer's lifetime.

Thus, barring exceptionally gifted writers, one presumes that these papers tend to be a sort of domestic business, one of those things you do in dressing gown and slippers so to speak (not to mention other less formal house wear). Therefore, in the short lifespan of these particular diaries, the widespread indifference evidenced by the www has been something of a comfort. As faraway and indefinable as “posterity”, the abstract web surfer could hardly be more than a rather improbable eventuality.

However, and much to my shocked chagrin, a real, tangible, eyeball to page reader has miraculously happened; and now I find myself kicking the slippers under the couch, looking in horror at the mess around, abashed, self-conscious. Lots of explaining to do, plenty of stuff to edit, correct, eliminate. Dear dear!.

I blame myself, of course. No one would have found it alone. It’s the message in a bottle syndrome. But, there it is, and I shall try to sink with the ship, with as much dignity as can be mustered in a dressing gown.

Sea storms seem the vivid portrait of just how powerless we are in the face of monumental forces, be they natural or not. While a good part of our lives transpire under the delusion that destiny is somehow under our control, that we choose certain routes that take us more or less inevitably to certain ports, the ever hungry sea shall do it’s will whether we like it or not, and even more disquietingly, with total disregard of our merits or faults.

Much like life, I posit, looking through tha ravaged timbers of my once proud vessel.

Curiously enough, and though I loved the story as a child, Robinson Crusoe is not one of my favourite castaways. The use of the adventure as a statement in favour of 19th cetury liberalism is more than I can stomach, however well K. Marx put old Robinson, or rather, Daniel Defoe in the right place. Niether do I hold any fondness for the hapless fedex employee hollywood marooned circa 2004 or thereabouts (however rich both are in secondary details).

The many themes that SW allows shall slowly and laboriously be explored. They are out there, in the salty breeze, Long John Silver's pension scheme, Odysseus' raft and so much more that I feel quite exhausted.

Do not go gentle into that good night

2006-05-22T12:33:00.000-03:00

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.



Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.



Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.



Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.



Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.



And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas

From The Poems of Dylan Thomas, published by New Directions. Copyright © 1952, 1953 Dylan Thomas. Copyright © 1937, 1945, 1955, 1962, 1966, 1967 the Trustees for the Copyrights of Dylan Thomas. Copyright © 1938, 1939, 1943, 1946, 1971 New Directions Publishing Corp.

Surviving being eaten by a whale...

2006-05-12T09:54:00.002-03:00

While, thankfully, the chances of anybody being swallowed by a large marine creature are extremely low ¹ there is hope for those that do come face to face with this situation.

Literary Reference

Biblical reference in Christian belief cites that Jonah survived in the belly of a great fish without ill effect, but consistent attacks have been made on this story and its veracity. Strong opinions have been put to paper that something like this could not possibly occur and that the story is pure fabrication.

Rudyard Kipling, in his short tale ‘How The Whale Got His Throat’, tells of a shipwrecked Mariner who is swallowed by a whale. He causes such a fuss in the belly of the beast that it agrees to release him, and to prevent further instances of swallowing unwary seamen the Mariner pulls a wooden grating into its gullet so it will only be able to eat fish and small marine creatures in future.

While it is possible that Jonah’s experiences have more to do with analogies than reality, and Kipling’s story is just a fanciful tale, there are much more recent accounts of individuals becoming trapped inside marine creatures' bellies, only to emerge some while later alive – if not necessarily in perfect condition.

Bartley and the Star of the East

In the late winter of 1891, the whale-ship 'Star of the East' was in the vicinity of the Falkland Islands when it came within sight of a whale. Two boats were dispatched with harpoons to snare and kill the great beast of the sea, but the lashing of its tail capsized one of the launches spilling the crew into the sea. All were accounted for except for a single sailor, James Bartley ² .

Ultimately the whale was killed and the carcass drawn aboard the vessel to begin the process of salvaging valuable resources. By the next day good progress had been made in removing the layers of blubber from the beast, so tackle was attached to its stomach to hoist it on deck. Sailors were startled by spasmodic life within the belly of the whale, and upon further inspection the missing sailor was found.

Bartley was quite mad for two weeks, but upon recovering his senses he recounted what little he could recall of being dragged under the water. Struggling for his life he had been drawn into darkness within which he felt a terrible and oppressive heat. He found slimy walls that gave slightly to his touch, but could find no exit. When his situation finally dawned on him Bartley lost his senses completely and lapsed into a state of catatonia.

During his time inside the whale the gastric juices effected his exposed skin. His face, neck and hands were bleached a deathly white with a texture like parchment, a condition from which the skin never recovered. Bartley believed that he would probably have lived inside his house of flesh until he starved, as breathing was not a problem.

Other Tales

Whales have been recorded attacking whaling ships, with references existing from the 19th century. While similar attacks may occur in modern whaling, the structural integrity of ships and enhanced sensor equipment mean that catastrophic attacks are less likely to occur.

In the winter of 1820, a Sperm Whale attacked the American whaling boat ‘Essex’ in the South Pacific, holing and capsizing her ³ . While many of the crew were able to get to safety, a number were never accounted for.

In March 1863 near Cape Cod, a whaling boat was struck by a whale sending a crewman overboard into the creature’s open mouth. His legs caught in between the teeth of the whale and after it died, due to injuries from exploding harpoons, he was rescued and revived.

Whale Attitude

While not actually a whale the Killer Whale, or Orca, has been known to attack and consume creatures as big as the Great White Shark, a dozen feet in length. In 1997 video footage was recorded of such an attack off the Farallon Islands ⁴ .

The Sperm Whale has a voracious appetite, and 11-inch teeth. They consider Sharks and Giant Squid fair game in making up the ton of food they can consume in a day.

Conclusions

By and large, the chances of being swallowed by a whale are small, so the need to worry about surviving inside one is extremely limited. Baleen whales prefer plankton, krill and the like, so large, flailing humans are only likely to be consumed accidentally. However, there are 65 species of toothed whale, including the Sperm Whale, and they are known to eat very large creatures whole. By comparison with a Great White Shark the average human swimmer is snack-sized. News reports usually arise when survivors live to tell the tale, so the absence of recent reports of people being swallowed by whales doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

Once inside, the advice seems to be to sit tight and try not to touch anything if at all possible. Gastric processes are invasive and skin does not recover well from encounters with organic acids. The process by which gastric acid handles food is slow and wearing clothing, especially of the synthetic variety, is likely to buy you some time.

Escape from the belly of a whale, aside from simple survival, may be far more difficult as the majority of whales - especially the Baleen whales that rely on sieving minuscule marine lifeforms for their diet - have complex digestive systems. They may have up to four stomach chambers, rather like the multi-stomach system of a cow, which allows a controlled channelling of foodstuffs through the digestive system. There is also the constant intake of seawater that results from their feeding processes. Unless someone is looking for you, or you have a very large cutting implement and a strong stomach, you may have to be satisfied with simply surviving until starvation takes you or good fortune saves the day.

If all else fails you might consider using pepper or a small fire to smoke your way out!

¹ Certainly there’s more chance of you being hit by a bus, or probably an asteroid for that matter.
² There are reports that suggest that this whole story may be apocryphal, purely an effort by Bartley to raise his own status and popularity - refer to TSR - The Skeptical Review.
³ Events expanded upon in the book ‘In the Heart of the Sea : The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex’ by Nathaniel Philbrick.
⁴ The Farallon Islands are situated 28 miles due west of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco.

Courtesy of www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2

SEABOURNE

2006-05-09T08:40:00.000-03:00

“I think I’d rather be a beachcomber”, I thought, picturing a long desert stretch of sand and nothingness huddling by the sea like a spent lover, lazily soaking in the sun, its back to a sparse pine forest. My mind was just flitting towards a small wooden shack of undefined colour, with a broad porch, a ragged hammock motionless in one extreme, pebbles, and seashells and derelict wood - softened by the waves and bleached by the sun- cast about with deliberate carelessness...

“Stop drivelling” rasped a voice in my ear, wrenching me away from the seaside as O’Farrell’s smug, overweighed bookshelves fuzzily came into view again. Row after row of leather-bound volumes, fastidiously classified and neatly placed, giving the impression of a vast and solid learning, the illusion of having an answer to every question, the solution for every client’s problem.

I realised that I had inadvertently spoken out loud. “For Christ’s sake, what wrong with you man?” -again the voice- with a hint of puzzled impatience. “This could mean a big leap in your career! Are you sure you’re okay?” “Excuse me”, I mumbled, “I’ve been a bit stressed out... I’m fine... really...and thanks again, I appreciate your support”.

“Get down there, set up the Trust and be back on Friday to celebrate. The Firm has a big stake in this, and I’m counting on you. You know some of my associates don’t think the world of you after that conflict of interests in the Capriati Case, they find you unreliable. Anyway, don’t let me down!”. The interview was over, O’Farrell had his mind on a brief that waited on his large oak desk, so I let myself out of the office, picked up my plane tickets at his secretary’s desk (“Have a nice trip” she said perfunctorily, while talking on the ‘phone) and pushed through the meandering aisles and boxes of O’Farrell, Milton, Meinhaus and Mills’ Law firm.

I’m walking along the seaside now. My feet have become hardened by the sand, the salt in the air tickles my nose, its paths criss-cross over my tightened skin, my hair stands on end effortlessly. A persistent breeze, such as sailors pray for, skims over the waves carrying the distant thunder of tempests, of galleons cracking like nutshells, of cannon-fire. I sense the silent movement of dark grey predators lunging and the slow, steady expansion of pale red coral.

London is an evanescent memory, an uneasy dream, stark and intense in the middle of the night - suddenly waking, heated, bilious, trembling-, slowly fading, unreal, incongruous in the sunlight.

It took some time before daylight imposed it’s realm. At first it was all quite painful. Perhaps the initial surprise, the shock, was bearable, almost comic, when you attained a certain perspective. But, offence, was much harder to take. The sense of disappointment weighed on me. I had always cherished other people’s trust, thinking it made me feel worthy. Of course I never really acknowledged how it rapidly became tension in my back and neck, how my stomach seemed to close up and obsessive thoughts of failure pursued me. That was no one’s fault but my own. The inherent laziness which seduces us away from our better selves, the distraction of trivialities and nonsense, a weakness not to be allowed or forgiven.

One day a young promise, the willing bearer of other people’s hopes, even dreams, the next I was Judas, Quisling, one who put his own (and, naturally, unacceptable) concerns above all else, biting the hand that fed him, spitting on everything once held dear. And, what for? Something incomprehensible, indecorous, foolish, perhaps even obscene, like some pathetic old man in a porn theatre, shuffling up to young boys around the toilets.

The tide rises slowly and licks at my feet. A maroon sail cuts across the skyline, heading out into the faraway blue, as waves spray out white at the schooner’s hull; a curious dolphin, a hungry cormorant, my mind follows behind, lost between sky and water.

I suppose there is something unholy about straying from the established path, an unforgivable insolence that others receive as a slap in the face. The cause of such unnatural behaviour had to be found in some uncondonable character trait. Naturally, there is always a generous roster of sins and vices to which deviant behaviour can be attributed. In such circumstances, all poetic references to “distant drums” are rapidly extinguished in the purifying flames of outrage and rejection.

I come upon a large chunk of driftwood embedded in the sand. A family of spidery crabs scrabbles beneath it, and warily spy outwards. Two seagulls screech at each other over a morsel of fish. It falls to the sea as they battle and curse. The log offers me the comfort of its smooth sides, I gently let myself down and lean my shoulders on it, my head falls backwards filling my eyes with gold gilded clouds and a deep, fathomless sky. The sun goes down majestically in a sea of liquid fire.

I completed my mission in the Bahamas with the same speed and disgust with which you cross murky, pee-ridden alleys in big cities, faintly sensing menacing shapes in the dark and creatures moving around in the garbage. My mind was seldom there, and it was obvious by the bewildered and progressively impatient stares I met when emerging from some inopportune reverie, that I was hardly causing a favourable impression on my hosts and clients. However, I was so relieved to get through each day without any serious mishap, that by the second rum punch at the hotel’s Bar & Grill, it was all almost forgotten. At some point I’d crawl off to bed and, thankfully, a very persistent clerk made sure I finally got up the following morning.

Night has overtaken me, there is a soft chill, the wind races the waves and triumphantly leaps over the beach into the forest. My rest piece seems to have become harder, I discover parts of my back I never knew existed, I wonder why knowledge is so often painful, but... no time for that... those stars, up there, falling out of the black velvet sky need to be watched, revered, drunk down thirstily in wide unblinking eyefuls, even at the risk of inebriation. I can’t seem to weary of them, though at times the unbearable deepness of the night sky refuses to pacify the soul, and the planets shoot through your body like lightning, twitching muscles, dizzying, too vast, too bright, too far away. Then, there is no option but to seek refuge in some low ceiling tavern, drowning in the sounds of drinking and laughter, their awful, silent roar.

Laura appeared on my doorstep a cloudy afternoon about a fortnight after I’d announced I was staying. She looked as fresh and bright as usual, though her eye rims were redder and her smile faltered. I just stood there, not knowing whether to hug her or dive out the window. “Please... come in, come in” I stammered looking hopelessly around, throwing some clothes off a chair and beckoned her to sit. She surveyed the dingy, furnished cabin I was renting, with all the reserve she could command, while I busied myself making coffee. I felt her eyes boring through me while my back was turned, but somehow we managed to postpone looking at each other directly, until I finally sat down in front of her with the most undrinkable coffee I’d ever made. “So... how are you?” she asked almost in a whisper.

I am mesmerised by the sea. Perhaps it is natural, being an islander; but this is not the sea of my early youth, which seemed to batter the proud castle walls of the coast of Devon like an endless invading horde. Nor is it an accident to be conquered, a battlefield of empires. I see it now as a continuum of this piece of land on which I sit, as radically different in its dark wildness, its fierce joy, as all that lies beyond rational thought. Another world, barely touching ours, speaking to us in it’s own language, seeing into our depths, in ways we cannot conceive. It’s ebb and flow are life itself, expanding and contracting eternally, the core remaining aloof, untouched by even the mightiest forces of nature.

As I sit here, motionless, awed… the sea runs through me... these eyes -suddenly turquoise- pierce the bottomless abyss, my coral bones reach out to the thin sunlight filtering past the waves, seaweed flows from my head.

I loved Laura with the violent, uneasy tenderness of an undeserved reward. Once, as a child, pushing my way through the brush and thistles of the moors, I came upon a wild pony. Breathlessly advancing one foot after the next, I made my way gradually towards it, praying it would stay, and, though snorting and stamping, it continued feeding, eyeing me warily from the side. I dreaded the idea of a sudden flight, yet, a curious calm came over me, a sort of uncertain tension seemed to bind us, a sense of brotherhood. Perhaps it was just the sun, building bridges of light, toying with reflections, perhaps that weighty warmth of summer afternoons that slows all motion, rooting us briefly to the ground. We breathed in unison and unknown voices from our depths seemed to speak to each other. I was by its side, it’s nostrils flared as I reverently caressed its sleek flank, afraid that the beating of my heart would scare it away. I felt that I could have mounted and ridden all day and all night into the moors, away from everything. The thought frightened me, and as my mind strayed, the pony softly nudged me with its muzzle and trotted away.

And I knew then, and often felt thereafter, however hard I tried to bury the feeling, that some essential flaw of mine, a kind of spiritual handicap, would always come between me and the multifold magic that I intuited life kept hidden among its many treasures. Some essential part of Laura was always as far away from me as that wild pony’s thoughts.

The grey water is becoming alive with colours, ripples pick up pinks and violets from the early morning sky, deep greens open and close like mouths, farther, speckles of gold and silver are tossed around on blue-green waves. My heart opens up to encompass them, a rainbow nestles behind my eyes.

Laura left silently. We could not bridge the sea that had unveiled between us. That night we made love with a soft desperateness and, as on those rare occasions when all our masks had fallen away, she giggled... and then wept, reverberating slowly, as if some hidden chord had been touched. We fell asleep clinging to each other, and when I awoke, she was gone.

It is twilight, a dull, fading red marks the spot where the sun was swallowed by the ocean, the surf whooshes, a lone sea-gull cries... and I cannot help wondering over and over, why we must betray others to avoid betraying ourselves… why this poignant, undefined longing…. why the sea...

SWD I

2006-04-26T13:38:00.000-03:00

These diaries are the casual offspring of some recent unrelated readings (Stephen Crane’s The Boat, García Marquez’ El Naufrago, Han Blumenberg’s Die Serge ghet über den Fluss) and a particularly dark phase in my ongoing mid-life crisis.

Whatever the context, images of shipwreck suddenly acquired a deeper and more poignant meaning. I myself felt not unlike a castaway adrift in a powerful, indifferent sea, all energy put into just not sliding of my own “slim spar” and slowly sinking.

Of course, another -probably worthier- reason for perpetrating this, is that I am in the process of quitting smoking and desperately need to do something with my hands.

Not that I volunteered for it. A bad case of pneumonia last Christmas which led to discovery of emphysema decided me to postpone suicide, at least by progressive asphyxia. I can’t say I’m really crazy about life, but I draw the line at long, slow and painful death.

Believe me, not being able to breathe is a disagreable affair. And that brings me back to one of the possible outcomes of shipwreck: drowning.

As German philosopher Hans Blumenberg points out (op.cit), ancient mariners did not bother to learn how to swim, an activity which, considering technology available in those times, just prolonged the agony. If we must drown, they probably considered shakespeareanly, “…twere well It were done quickly" (Macbeth -1.7.1-2).

The Berg

2006-04-19T15:18:00.000-03:00

THE BERG (A DREAM)
by: Herman Melville (1819-1891)

I saw a ship of martial build
(Her standards set, her brave apparel on)
Directed as by madness mere
Against a stolid iceberg steer,
Nor budge it, though the infatuate ship went down.
The impact made huge ice-cubes fall
Sullen, in tons that crashed the deck;
But that one avalanche was all--
No other movement save the foundering wreck.

Along the spurs of ridges pale,
Not any slenderest shaft and frail,
A prism over glass-green gorges lone,
Toppled; nor lace of traceries fine,
Nor pendant drops in grot or mine
Were jarred, when the stunned ship went down.
Nor sole the gulls in cloud that wheeled
Circling one snow-flanked peak afar,
But nearer fowl the floes that skimmed
And crystal beaches, felt no jar.
No thrill transmitted stirred the lock
Of jack-straw needle-ice at base;
Towers undermined by waves--the block
Atilt impending--kept their place.
Seals, dozing sleek on sliddery ledges
Slipt never, when by loftier edges
Through very inertia overthrown,
The impetuous ship in bafflement went down.

Hard Berg (methought), so cold, so vast,
With mortal damps self-overcast;
Exhaling still thy dankish breath--
Adrift dissolving, bound for death;
Though lumpish thou, a lumbering one--
A lumbering lubbard loitering slow,
Impingers rue thee and go down,
Sounding thy precipice below,
Nor stir the slimy slug that sprawls
Along thy dead indifference of walls.

"The Berg" was originally published in John Marr and Other Sailors. Herman Melville.
Privately printed, 1888.

As I ebb'd with the ocean of life,

2006-04-18T10:25:00.000-03:00

1
As I ebb'd with the ocean of life,
As I wended the shores I know,
As I walk'd where the ripples continually wash you Paumanok,
Where they rustle up hoarse and sibilant,
Where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways,
I musing late in the autumn day, gazing off southward,
Held by this electric self out of the pride of which I utter poems,
Was seiz'd by the spirit that trails in the lines underfoot,
The rim, the sediment that stands for all the water and all the
land of the globe.

Fascinated, my eyes reverting from the south, dropt, to follow
those slender windrows,
Chaff, straw, splinters of wood, weeds, and the sea-gluten,
Scum, scales from shining rocks, leaves of salt-lettuce, left by the
tide,
Miles walking, the sound of breaking waves the other side of me,
Paumanok there and then as I thought the old thought of likenesses,
These you presented to me you fish-shaped island,
As I wended the shores I know,
As I walk'd with that electric self seeking types.

2
As I wend to the shores I know not,
As I list to the dirge, the voices of men and women wreck'd,
As I inhale the impalpable breezes that set in upon me,
As the ocean so mysterious rolls toward me closer and closer,
I too but signify at the utmost a little wash'd-up drift,
A few sands and dead leaves to gather,
Gather, and merge myself as part of the sands and drift.

O baffled, balk'd, bent to the very earth,
Oppress'd with myself that I have dared to open my mouth,
Aware now that amid all that blab whose echoes recoil upon me I
have not once had the least idea who or what I am,
But that before all my arrogant poems the real Me stands yet
untouch'd, untold, altogether unreach'd,
Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and
bows,
With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written,
Pointing in silence to these songs, and then to the sand beneath.

I perceive I have not really understood any thing, not a single
object, and that no man ever can,
Nature here in sight of the sea taking advantage of me to dart
upon me and sting me,
Because I have dared to open my mouth to sing at all.

3
You oceans both, I close with you,
We murmur alike reproachfully rolling sands and drift, knowing
not why,
These little shreds indeed standing for you and me and all.

You friable shore with trails of debris,
You fish-shaped island, I take what is underfoot,
What is yours is mine my father.

I too Paumanok,
I too have bubbled up, floated the measureless float, and been
wash'd on your shores,
I too am but a trail of drift and debris,
I too leave little wrecks upon you, you fish-shaped island.

I throw myself upon your breast my father,
I cling to you so that you cannot unloose me,
I hold you so firm till you answer me something.

Kiss me my father,
Touch me with your lips as I touch those I love,
Breathe to me while I hold you close the secret of the murmuring
I envy.

4
Ebb, ocean of life, (the flow will return,)
Cease not your moaning you fierce old mother,
Endlessly cry for your castaways, but fear not, deny not me,
Rustle not up so hoarse and angry against my feet as I touch you
or gather from you.

I mean tenderly by you and all,
I gather for myself and for this phantom looking down where we
lead, and following me and mine.
Me and mine, loose windrows, little corpses,
Froth, snowy white, and bubbles,
(See, from my dead lips the ooze exuding at last,
See, the prismatic colors glistening and rolling,)
Tufts of straw, sands, fragments,
Buoy'd hither from many moods, one contradicting another,
From the storm, the long calm, the darkness, the swell,
Musing, pondering, a breath, a briny tear, a dab of liquid or soil,
Up just as much out of fathomless workings fermented and thrown,
A limp blossom or two, torn, just as much over waves floating,
drifted at random,
Just as much for us that sobbing dirge of Nature,
Just as much whence we come that blare of the cloud-trumpets,
We, capricious, brought hither we know not whence, spread out
before you,
You up there walking or sitting,
Whoever you are, we too lie in drifts at your feet.

Walt Whitman

The Hornet

2006-04-10T10:06:00.000-03:00

…“Captain Mitchell ordered the three boats to be launched instantly, which was done—and so hurriedly that the longboat (the one he left the vessel in himself) had a hole as large as a man’s head stove in her bottom. A blanket was stuffed into the opening and fastened to its place. Not a single thing was saved, except such food and other articles as lay about the cabin and could be quickly seized and thrown on deck. Forty minutes after the fire alarm the provisions and passengers were on board the three boats, and they rowed away from the ship—and to some distance, too, for the heat was very great. Twenty minutes afterward, the two masts with their rigging and their broad sheets of canvas wreathed in flames, crashed into the sea....

All night long the thirty-one unfortunates sat in their frail boats and watched the gallant ship burn; and felt as men feel when they see a tried friend perishing and are powerless to help him. The sea was illuminated for miles around, and the clouds above were tinged with a ruddy hue; the faces of the men glowed in the strong light as they shaded their eyes with their hands and peered out anxiously upon the wild picture, and the gunwales of the boats and the idle oars shone like polished gold.....

At five o’clock on the morning after the disaster, in latitude 2º 20' north, longitude 112º 8' west, the ship went down, and the crew of the Hornet were alone on the great deep, or, as one of the seamen expressed it. ‘We felt as if somebody or something had gone away—as if we hadn’t any home any more.’....”…

Excerpts from the Account of the Burning of the Clipper Ship Hornet by Mark Twain, Sacramento Daily Union, 1866

Castaway

2006-04-10T08:22:00.000-03:00

A man adrift on a slim spar
A horizon smaller than the rim of a bottle.
Tented waves rearing lashy dark points
The near whine of froth in circles.
God is cold.

Stephen Crane, 'A man adrift on a slim spar'

A small gallery of ships, wrecks & shipwrecks I

2006-04-06T10:49:00.000-03:00

something broken

2006-04-02T18:55:00.000-03:00

Broken lines, broken strings,
Broken threads, broken springs,
Broken idols, broken heads,
People sleeping in broken beds.
Ain't no use jiving
Ain't no use joking
Everything is broken.
Broken bottles, broken plates,
Broken switches, broken gates,
Broken dishes, broken parts,
Streets are filled with broken hearts.
Broken words never meant to be spoken,
Everything is broken.

Seem like every time you stop and turn around
Something else just hit the ground

Broken cutters, broken saws,
Broken buckles, broken laws,
Broken bodies, broken bones,
Broken voices on broken phones.
Take a deep breath, feel like you're chokin',
Everything is broken.

Every time you leave and go off someplace
Things fall to pieces in my face
Broken hands on broken ploughs,
Broken treaties, broken vows,
Broken pipes, broken tools,
People bending broken rules.
Hound dog howling, bull frog croaking,
Everything is broken.

Copyright © 1989 Special Rider Music

First Release Oh Mercy1989{ RealAudio }WindowsMedia { 56 }CompilationThe Essential Bob Dylan2000{ RealAudio }WindowsMedia { 56 }
bobdylan.com

...or not to write

2006-04-02T17:56:00.000-03:00

... you would do better, at least no worse, to obliterate texts than to blacken margins, to fill in the holes of words till all is blank and flat and the whole ghastly business looks like what it is, senseless, speechless, issueless misery.

Molloy, By Samuel Beckett

From the Samuel Beckett Endpage

on writing

2006-04-02T17:20:00.000-03:00

often it is the only
thing
between you and
impossibility.
no drink,
no woman's love,
no wealth
can
match it.
nothing can save
you
except
writing.
it keeps the walls
from
failing.
the hordes from
closing in.
it blasts the
darkness.
writing is the
ultimate
psychiatrist,
the kindliest
god of all the
gods.
writing stalks
death.
it knows no
quit.
and writing
laughs
at itself,
at pain.
it is the last
expectation,
the last
explanation.
that's
what it
is.

charles bukowski
from blank gun silencer - 1991