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So I was an especially gullible kid who wished in vain that my parents would let me buy some sea monkeys that I saw advertised in Popular Mechanics. Never happened. Hold that thought.
Below is a foto of the Great Salt Lake. And before I came here, I’d heard that it stunk and held
no life. But how
then was it also a major bird migration path.
Doubleclick on this foto and see all the birds. And yes the water near shore was black with flies and other insects that–unlike gnats–disperse when you approach. All this brings up this
display outside Dave’s Gonzo Kayak rental on Antelope Island. To my amazement, I learned that Great Salt Lake has a fishery and this is an older, obsolete vessel used in the harvesting of brine shimp . . .
aka sea-monkeys!! Click here for a foto of a more up-to-date vessel, the likes of which I’d love to see.
Click here for a feature from High Country News on the fishery, here for the site of the GSL Brine Shrimp Cooperative, and here for some starter economics on the industry.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
This is the work and play post . . . the real connection is that although we all have to work, an important secret is to enjoy what you do. Imagine this enthusiasm in a co-worker or yourself on Monday morning, whether you’re struggling to finish a group report or
like the Villiersdorp farmers and ALE and their associates moving Alwyn Vintcent on 80 functioning wheels–at least– around Table Mountain.
If you don’t enjoy it . .. or relish the challenge and execution,
you won’t even start the job.
This is the only way to get through obstacles that stop your progress . . . Revel in the task . . . like
the folks at NYS Marine Highway, now shipping corn–yes–corn–out of Ontario and into the Erie Canal. How long has it been that agricultural commodities have been shipped on the Erie Canal . . . how long have people talked about shipping same on that waterway that revolutionized NYC . . . or international shipping entering the Erie Canal, but Margot (over a half century young) and its crew
is actually-as we speak–
doing it! Bravo to the folks at NYS Marine Highway. Click here for lots more fotos of Margot.
Sun dancing is great, but the spirit that drives the dancers also animates folks
who dance with ships and lines and
get one task done safely and then move to the next and the next.
So whatever you do, whatever I do . . .
I know that if I can do it in a way that gets me satifaction and pleasure,
the better.
South African fotos come compliments of Colin Syndercombe; the Oswego/Erie Canal fotos, . . . Allan and Sally of Sally W, and all the others by Will Van Dorp.
Related: Here’s another ALE job.
Unrelated: The longest marathon swim starts tomorrow morning over 100 miles up the Hudson.
First . . . around the boro, the light is beauteous enough to suspend a sense of time and obligation and stress and disappointment. This side of the boro, though on duty, works the milder solstice.
Lynx (1967, ex-Catherine Foss, Kainani) probably working with a dredging project, I’ve never seen here before.
Discovery Coast glows.
Nicole Leigh waits orders, as crew might ponder
a different season, as seen here.
In this heat and light, Kimberly looks positively artdeco: her aqua would blend in on South Beach and way beyond.
Brandywine wrestles the season as she dances her partner DoubleSkin 141.
Quenames broods as she gazes into the stream.
Miriam Moran cruises past Sailors’ Snug Harbor, as purposefully as always.
Jane A. Bouchard races deep into right field, showing what waters can be divided by more than 6000 hp on the wheels, while her older sister
Barbara E. Bouchard dozes briefly in the shadows before moving upriver, where
the venerable Patty Nolan dons her midsummer’s bikini, freshens up her dancing paint . . . the mayor’s drum is soon to call to disorder the 2012 parade . . . the sixth boro’s shoreline version of Mardi Gras.
OK . . . one final glance for now at Lynx off to the dredge site.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who is solely responsible for any erroneous interpretations of event, signs, and artless ceiling doodles.
Happy summer!!
Unrelated: If you happen to “see things” when you pass the KVK salt pile on Saturday night, you’re not hallucinating. Lumen will happen.
For an auspicious virtual gallivant as they sally forth through the Rideau Canal from Lake Ontario to Ottawa and beyond, follow Sally W . . .
With apologies to Johna, here are the pastries, a merman,
a merbike, but no meryak!! Guess that one will challenge us til next year.
Horns aplenty (more than in Pamplona Seattle) feted the solstice, as did
hooks on lures,
harlequins of
many genres,
spiral horned,
orchestrated horns,
harlequins with parasols,
and here . . . beyond the cowboy in blue toga, library maids and masters with a classic edition of Jules Verne . . . .
By the next day, revelry had migrated to Red Hook, where theatrical scenes of fund-raising on behalf of PortSide NewYork took place, involving officers of
someone’s flotilla bearing keys to the city. By the way, if you can make it to the Community Board 1 meeting TONIGHT by 6 pm, I’ll see you there. Important!
And someone commented . . asking what this mermaidographer looked like, click here and go to #9; thanks for these to Claudia Hehr.
Cheers. Summer is here . . . and I may tomorrow be agallivantin . . .
Meanwhile, if anyone got good pics of the librarian mermaid/mermen contingent . . . please share?
aka . . pastries pasties and paint, starting with the self-described ”naked cowgirl.”
Why
gild
the
lily?
I’ll
just
put up
fotos
but
further
remain
mute.
See you at south Brooklyn aka Isle of Coney next year.
Happy summertime.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Coney Island–the reef–has existed within the sixth boro since time immemorial, this gathering has occurred since 1983, and tugster has blogged it since 2007, drawn by the natural beauty of creatures–like this one– with
their altruistic sensibilities, their
bio-diversity, their
breathing behavior in dry–if muggy- air, and … more.
But I couldn’t help noticing yesterday that . . . as the mermaids school on this reef, so does another species . . . camera-bearers. Even chief-liaison Dick Zigun has cameras turned on him.
And mermaids themselves sport cameras, maybe as mimicry.
But yesterday the camera-bearers were everywhere!
They schooled–dare I say swarmed–each time a seamaid emerged out of the reef.
Not that the mercreatures seemed to perceive threat; in fact,
it looked like mutual enjoyment
a case of fun, fanfare,
flourish, and frippery.
And camera-bearers feasted at every turn.
And how do you suppose I got these fotos of
such lovely creatures, who
traveled by a range of
conveyance?
More on that tomorrow . . . and the pasties and paint verson of the story.
OK, all fotos here by Will Van Dorp.
Totally related: in the third foto from end above . . . one mermaid sported a tugboat atop her hear but my shot was blurry. Also, I missed a shot of the “librarian mermaids,” which, if anyone got, I’d love a link or a copy.
#1 was here.
It’s June. Might you be suffering from hypoclupea . . . deficiency of herring? Read what the celebrated neurologist Oliver Sacks writes about treatment here, as published in the New Yorker two years ago. Hypoclupea can leave you blase, bleached, apathetic . . .
dried out . . . as Miss Callie herself is feeling these days. To see Miss Callie in her element among the fishes, click here.
Even on Coney Island, the painting near the boardwalk looks off because this siren has taken to eating . . . @#@! dogs, and they’re not even hot.
Go fishing . . . whether you use bunker for bait and catch your own, or just
exchange cash or credit at the nearest purveyor of “new catch holland herring,” and you’ll find your zest for life just
returns! You might even end up seeing mermaids without having to go to the latest Depp/Disney show.
All fotos by will Van Dorp, who has lots of unrelated odds and ends and who just might not post tomorrow.
Translated info on the fleet at a “loggers” festival in Vlaardingen on the Rhine this weekend. ”Logger” in Dutch is “lugger” in English.
From Uglyships’ Bart, here’s a video on an uneventful loading of the loading of 15! tugs onto SSHLV Fjell in Singapore bound for Maracaibo via Cape Town. Here’s a Reuters article on same.
And finally, last but not least, you’ll see a new image of “tugster” on the upper left side of this blog; click on the image and you’ll see part of an article that appeared in Jack Tar Issue #5. Watercolor is by Herb Ascherman of Cold is the Sea blog. Another great example of his work is cover on Jack Tar #5.
Finally, if you find yourself in Manhattan Saturday, look to the water: I know of at least one swim around the island race going on. New York has enthusiastic swimmers!
Happy solstice!
The solstice happens in a week. Is your household ready, mobilized. Can you safely take it out onto the highways and wetways?
Thoughts of anything but summer . . . with its adventures and gallivants . .. are elusive, for me. Dana Spiotta writes of that in tomorrow’s NYTimes magazine, recounting a voyage on the Erie Canal by rowboat with Tide and Current Taxi‘s very own Marie Lorenz. You could go fishing: both Marlin and Minnow are currently in the sixth boro.
You could just go sit by the water and see all there’s to see. I saw a classic loon yesterday–who dove before I could snap evidence. This Corsair passed more slowly, less skittishly.
A week from now you could swim around Manhattan . . . or volunteer to keep swimmers safe by emailing cweber@nyc.org
You could swallow new herring and gin. Here’s more info.
In a week you could go to the Clearwater Festival.
This foto from last year comes from Yen. I know where, like these monks, I’m going . . . .
Next Saturday . . . the sea will again boil with hot blood and creatures rarely seen will emerge and parade. It’s the 29th
annual Mermaid Parade and Ball!!!
Thanks, Yen, for that foto.
When I got to the wreck Easter morning, as you know, I spotted a seal. In the fog and from a distance, I first imagined it another creature–one more typically associated with Easter but for some reason with a flattened tail and sleeping on the beach. I gave it wide berth, but when it turned
and looked up, I noticed it was either a deformed bunny sans ears OR NOT an Easter bunny but rather a seal that seemed to has a sense of boat survey work, the clue being that it was reading Colvin’s Steel Boat Building, Vol. 1.
Having with me a silkie speaker of Halichoerus grypus aka hooked-nosed sea pig, I thought I’d ask a few questions via translation. After dispensing with initial interview protocols, I learned that ᐅᒡᖪᒃ , as this young male gray calls himself, witnessed Le Papillon arrive on the beach and was calculating odds of it rolling off the beach in like but reverse manner. ᐅᒡᖪᒃ demonstrated as he spoke, and
after astounding me with jargon like panting, racking, hogging, sagging, and hogging some more, he grew quiet, pensively stroking his juvenile whiskers. ”Sooner . . . would have been better than now, but, in my not-so-humble seal opinion, it needs a strong vessel . . . of several hundred orca-power at least (must be how seals calculate terrific torque) to wrestle the pinky free of this entombing sand and
back to its own element.”
So I risked sounding like a fool and asked the next question . . . which ᐅᒡᖪᒃ met with such guffaws and explosive
seal chortles that . . . totally mortified, I backed off . . .
I turned back once while leaving; ᐅᒡᖪᒃ must have felt bad. My translator told me she heard him mutter something about “I can’t believe I said that. I need to learn a bit of tact with these terrestrials.” Then, he said something about heading for South Street Seaport next . . . . hmmmmm!
All fotos by Will Van Dorp. No . . I won’t translate the question into English. ᐅᒡᖪᒃ . . . Good luck with your salvage plans. And all your projects.
Teaser: When you get to the last foto in this post, you’ll see a foreign icebreaker operating on the Hudson, but I believe the assigned registry is wrong.
I almost called this “maritime monday morning after ….” I’d rather think of it as a fashion shoot given the sopping right side of my middleparts below, but for full disclosure, neither I nor the guffawing bowsprite to my left spilled the delicious beer onto my lap. But you’ll have to decide on a caption.
Some suggestions might relate to the hazards of having uncapped liquids on a table in an establishment old enough to be haunted by poltergeists OR strange rituals among waterbloggers seeking solace from seasonal affective disorder OR the hazards of drawing SUCH lifelike figures on a tablecloth and talking about them (in recollection of last summer’s adventures) that they might twitch … because a shark’s tail MIGHT just spasm and flick. Truth be told, Brooklyn lager rained down off the side of the table and I didn’t immediately standup because the downpour by then was over and soaked through my winterchill layers.
Previous accounts of our “conference” left out the miracle of our putting the Earmaid to work carrying beer or handing out coasters decals . . . OMG . . . those were DECALS, folks!! It also failed to mention
how lively the shark became when a drawing of the east end of Long Island sprouted teeth . . . north and south fork transforming into upper and lower jaw seemed somewhat menacing to the otherwise confident porbeagle. Thanks to Carolina Salguero for these fotos.
Saturday morning after . . . I was there to catch the sweet sashay of Ipanema heading to sea (and then to Savannah) into the dawn between the Narrows and the Highlands a dozen miles away. “When she moves it’s like a samba that swings so cool and sways so gently . . . ” yeah . . . that’s what I thought walking in the morning yellow and feeling truly blessed. Doubleclick enlarges here and the next.
Maybe you wonder why I hang my free time on the water and blog about it . . . I wonder that too sometimes, often in fact, and just conclude it’s what I do to feel happy . . . corny, maybe but true.
The water that is the sixth boro is many things to many folks: an obstacle, a place of employment, a zone to regulate, a playpen. For me, it’s a teacher and guide, a mentor whose help and consolation I sometimes need, a place where I’ve found many rewarding friendships . . . yeah . .. with humans. (Like the one who sent the last foto on this post . . . not the foto below, which shows Eagle Atlanta and Eagle Beaumont, slightly nearer, older and smaller of the two, at anchor in the vicinity of the Narrows.)
OK, that “foreign icebreaker” was represented to me as Norwegian. And I fell for it in Dave’s email subject line . . . even though I’ve seen this guy on several other blogs previously.
I beg to differ . . . the lines and attitude convince me this icebreaker must be Dutch. And here I issue a challenge . . . how about a series of fotos of such water denizens as . . . maybe more Dutch icebreakers, a Chinese submarine, a Welsh dredge . . . help me out here.
Fotos 3 through 6 by Will Van Dorp, and the foto 7 . . . sent to me by a friend but watermarked to joe-ks.com.
Totally related to today: bowsprite redux for V-Day.
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