You are currently browsing the monthly archive for April 2007.
Let me repost this photo from yesterday.
Here’s a little more contrast…
And here just enough for me to identify the vessel as MSC Tampa.
So yesterday I said . . . it seemed skulking out of port toward darkness, knowing of an embarrassing incident captured in this article less than a month ago. Maybe the memory of fellow fleetster MSC Napoli (scroll to bottom) is quite fresh. Whatever became of Napoli?
I don’t mean to pick on MSC; I own up to my gargantuan share of faux pas, misdeeds and accidents. Risk safely.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
Meetings always bring promise, but too many promising convergences disappoint and potential dissipates, and pairs unpair. Paths diverge.
The sea is so large and its pull so compelling. Some head for the light…
…and others for darkness.
Tomorrow . . . more on this dark ship and (lol) why it may be skulking away.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
Over marine radio “may day” is not to be trifled with, as it means a grave and imminent danger threatens life and property, but I suppose it’s safe and permissible to entitle a blogpost so, especially near the first day of the fifth month aka mid-Taurus.
A variation on the May Day ritual of dancing around the maypole happens frequently on a sailing vessel like Pioneer with heavy sails, accompanied by rhythmical chanting that assists in raising what powers the ship. To coin another blog neologism . . . sweating together = “sweather,” as in Let’s sweather. Hmm… has possibilities.
The may pole takes a variety of forms, but it’s about cooperation; no one has to dance alone.
and dancers can assume a plethora of dance positions in three dimensions.
Book a spot on a sailing ship for Tuesday aka Beltane and dance.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
“A cargo ship” I recently heard someone say, referring to a vessel in the harbor. That’s correct, but we each choose to fields to use generic terms about. Mine happens not to be cargo ships, though that’s specific in its own way.
Seeing this lightering take place in Gravesend Bay, I wanted the usual specifics. By the way, notice the Coney Island parachute jump just off the bow. This blogger’s joy derives from these details as well as the mere sight of a blue hull and red deck.
Histria Coral (scroll to page eight) comes not from the shipyards of Japan, Korea, or China. Croatia? Instead, about a year ago off the ways into the Black Sea at Constanta, Romania. Who woulda thought! In Lower New York Bay! And a peruse of Constanta and its environs–I imagined the mouth of the Danube, erroneously–apprised me of a recent canal dug with some notoriety.
By the way, next time I refer in a generic way to something you care about, let me know. Instruct me. you know who you are. Yes, you of course.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
Spring sunlight penetrates where winter’s hidden intrigues entertained by hearth or mere candle flame. Secrets then are no longer secret now. In spring ghosts mostly retreat, but sometimes they dare intrude with friendly nudges or unidentifiable noises or scents.
“Don’t you recall what plans we once spawned here in private?” the spirits say.
“What clandestine arrivals? What furtive departures? What profound events feted? What parties til dawn with excitement heightened by what music or what wine?” Now mostly gone, the sprites are almost forgotten like . . .
. . . strolls for pairs seeking private vantage from a bridge bed long crumbled, even friends who no longer talk as they did, ties ravaged by personal pirates.
I hear you still, my heritage; I consume your memory, like recalling cargoes once carried by these ships. They too are like lovers gone way off course and left high and dry.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
My brother buys a Hess truck each year. He likes the iconic colors that make the brand and has no interest in Hess history.
This post from December I had thought to call “Branded,” given the photos. So the iconic markings on this ship have brought up this notion again. Here’s a link to a fabulous foto of the same ship under construction and before it’s branded with the corporate colors.
It is a remarkable vessel; check out the P-Max microsite on the right side for safety features of this Bermuda-registered ship.
If you’re wondering by now what connection this has with Hess, it’s a transporter of Hess petroleum: a branded ship carrying a differently branded fuel for our branded vehicles. Further interesting, Stena Performance is Swedish-owned and US-leased. And Croatia-built, land of the argosy.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
First, congratulations to Peter Mello for correctly identifying the yawl in Relief Crew 3 as Leilani. Check out his blog Sea Fever–great poem too–here. He’ll be relief crew soon. Thanks to Sail-Brooklyn, here‘s more info on Leilani (scroll down a bit). More info on Leilani’s builder appears in Portrait of a Port, one of my long-time favorite books. Close second goes to Bonnie, creator of the inimitable frogma, for passing along this link (click through for Leilani and her friends; hope she relief crews soon too.
The gratuitous photo above of Hudson ice was taken only six weeks ago; now that spring is here, I can bear to think of how cold early March was. I walked topless in the park today: I know… it wasn’t very interesting. Not much nudity on this site; I leave that mostly to my fellow-countryman, Meneer Boot. Any guesses who these handsome stockinged knees belong to?
Cristoforo Colombo, it is. A confession: I walked past this Central Park statue last week in the context of the Schooner Anne’s departure, and I had a renewed appreciation of him as an expedition leader. Against stupendous myth, he convinced a crew to sail off into the unknown. Tragic consequences may have come to a civilization from his discovery, but the courage to have ventured beyond reasonable boundaries as his crew did has to be admired. Bravissimo, Cristoforo.
Final note here: Schooner Anne‘s tracking is working again. Find schooner Anne on the blogroll to the left and click. The carving above travels in her living space.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
When my five-year-old grandson draws a picture with a boat, he makes the water blue, of course, in front of green hills. So what color is this water that Pete Seeger‘s famous Clearwater sails through? And the hills?
And what color is juxtaposed with this happy springtime-brown muskrat?
Surely the Hudson’d be blue if seen cradling this tug delivering a fuel barge up to Warex.
Guess I’m not going to see this blue. Yet if the kid were drawing the boat floating in brown, I’d be disturbed, especially if he explained “No, grandpa, it’s ecru.” Looks like my expectation will have to adjust, especially after heavy rains. So now it’s brown like the color of water, like the color of earth. Happy earth day every day.
escorts… like bridesmaids, Xena’s Gabrielle, doulas everywhere
People wellwishing to starboard and vessel companioning to port.
Blessings of the Quyak folk…
Big G motorfolk …
and slower paced schoonerfolk who if allowed would go all the way, all 1000 days too, but for now content themselves blogging ‘n documentary griots
Anne playing on the sea, playing with the leviathans (see v. 25, 26) be they metal like Alice or CMA CGM Sapphire or organic like the the brothers of the albatross and the sisters aunts and cousins of last week’s whale. Play well for a 1000 days.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
I’ve never been to Cape Canaveral although I’ve been a space fan ever since Alan Shepard. I was a fan of Tereshkova. I loved the Rutans and John Ridgway. But yesterday was like Canaveral, Baikonur, and the Mojave desert all combined. They started, left!!
Our lady and hundreds more turned out to wish blessings.
Verrazano and all the other bridges of harbors really are like archways.
Track them here. Godspeed Reid, Soanya, and Anne as land recedes and disappears. It’s a thousand Earth Days on what’s mostly a wet earth planet.
tugster: a waterblog 
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