From the Line Locker 30

Have you read or heard references to a “trackless sea” or “trackless deep”?  Last night I was looking a “whole ocean” views of traffic.  Notice the magenta stream?  Recall that the magenta arrowheads show recreational vessels.  The green (cargo ships) and red (tanker) arrowheads seem much more random, but the magenta . . . pink . . . ones, they are totally following a track.

Ditto here; notice the magenta stream showing the “coconut milk run” on the tradewinds to the west to the Marquesas, French Polynesia, and beyond from Panama.

If we look at the Indian Ocean, the red icons heading east out of the Persian/Arab Gulf and the green ones heading both ways around southern Africa . . .  does rush hour on highways around any major metropolitan center come to mind?  It does for me.

Given all the sea shanties dating from the 19th century and references to Cape Horn, how about a shanty or two about the Cape of Good Hope?

Tracks in the southern Atlantic form an X. Try it out yourself.  Without AIS, we’d still talk of “trackless seas.”

A “little sister” Statue of Liberty will be displayed on a sixth boro island later this month and next.  Note the photo credit;  I wonder if the half-ton statue will arrive by CMA CGM water cargo or air cargo.

And finally . . . thanks to a Great Lakes mariner for this page from the Detroit Marine Historian Newsletter.  Grouper was a name yet to be when that publication hit the stands. The auction info is here.

I use the term “line locker” where some might say “miscellaneous.”  That’s the bright red hull of Issuma a decade ago as it encountered a local mammal while transiting the Northwest Passage.  You might wonder what became of Richard Hudson and his boat.  The good news is that he’s still sailing, and the better news is that he’s creating a rich offering of sailing videos on YouTube.  Check them out here. 

Screen grabs, WVD.