Messing About In Sailboats

This one's for you Joe Rouse

How do you like dem apples?

Very very big fish

Seen on Environmentalgraffiti.com.

"The Chinese Paddlesfish, which lives in the Yangtze River weighs half a tonne and can grow to a length of seven and a half metres, whilst the Giant Freshwater Stingray has a diameter of up to three metres."

"Alter"nautical Top 10 Songs

Adam told me of the top ten sailing tunes project over a few pints the other night.  Impressed by the fact that Brandy by Looking Glass cracked the top ten, I offered to chime in with some alternative nautical tunes (after  a few semi-drunken bars of the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald).  Thought I'm not a sailor, I hope to be considered semi-qualified as a native Floridian and earnest musician.  Here you go -

1. The Mariner's Revenge Song by The Decemberists - An epic tale of scallywags, whales and vengence!

2. Sea Legs by The Shins.

3. What's An Ocean For? by White Whale.

4. O'Sailor by Fiona Apple.

5. Sail To The Moon by Radiohead.

6. Across Yer Ocean by Mercury Rev.

7. The Mollusk by Ween.

8. Up The Beach/Ocean Size by Janes Addiction.

9. Dramamine by Modest Mouse.

10. Lazy Flies by Beck - "out of the mangroves a miner bird cries".

Hope you enjoy them - Scott

Stupid Things Heard on Channel 16

We were sailing with some friends in NJ yesterday. We got to chatting about dumb things heard over the VHF. They told us the dumbest thing they heard once sailing in Florida:

Lady Boater: Attention Coast Guard, I need help.
Coastie: How can I assist
Lady Boater: I can't find Bimini on my map.
Coastie: Can you tell me what the number is on the chart you are looking at
Lady Boater: ...er I don't see any numbers
Coastie: Is there anything on your ..er map that will me help me determine what you are looking at
Lady Boater: Well there is a big Texaco logo in the corner.

I you know some equally stupid things heard over Ch 16, let me know

Song for Friday

One of the best things for me about the Top 10 Sailing Songs project for me was discovering a lot of music and artists I have never heard.  I am embarrassed to say I had never heard of Stan Rogers but this was my loss.

He has a passionate fan base. Here is just one of the comments from Gary Bruner in the original entries to the contest:

Oh man! I see no reference to the great Stan Rogers, a Canadian songwriter/singer far beyond most on this list. He was AMAZING before his untimely death in an air accident back in the eighties. I think I have ALL of his albums, including "Home in Halifax", recorded live.
Super songs include: White Squall, The Mary Ellen Carter, Barrett's Privateers, Make and Break Harbor, Fogarty's Cove, and The Bluenose, to name but a few.

Also, one should hear Eric Bogel's tribute to Rogers entitled "Safe in the Harbor", a song I've requested by played at my funeral.

Guaranteed satisfaction!

Sadly Stan Rogers left us too soon. He died in 1983 from smoke inhalation on board an Air Canada jet that made an emergency landing in Cincinatti.  Stan Rogers was 33.

You can find a good catalog on iTunes but it's hard to find Stan Rogers in stores and I waited a month for Amazon to find it. You can find out a lot more about his music and hear samples at his web site.

He has a wonderful Canadian folk voice and sings some of the best songs of the sea. Here is a snippet from the Mary Ellen Carter:

And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.

Rise again, rise again - though your heart it be broken
Or life about to end.
No matter what you've lost, be it a home, a love, a friend,
Be like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.

The song saved the life of one fisherman on a sinking ship.

I could not find any video of Stan Rogers performing but here a rather campy tribute to Nova Scotia with Stan Rogers singing "Barrett's Privateers"

 

 

Too drunk to find my dinghy

Anyone who has sailed the BVIs will know of the Willie T in the Bight at Norman Island. It's an institution. The Wiliam Thormton aka Willie T is a 98' schooner converted into a two deck floating bar.

 As I was sitting on the train coming home yesterday a smile slipped across my face as I recalled one of the funnest evenings of my life about 10 years ago spent at the Willie T.

My wife (not her in the pic. This is a random pic to protect the innocent) and I were in the Caribbean for the first time and at the end of a Learn-to-bareboat course with Steve Colgate's Offshore Sailing School (Offcourse as my wife calls it). It was an excellent week under the supervision of central casting charter skipper, Capt Tom. Tom was a gruff divorcee from Florida who looked a bit like a pint-sized Magnum PI with a beer gut fueled on Mount Gay and Ginger

There were two boats in the course: My wife and I on one boat with a jolly single lady from Connecticut. The other boat was a mixed bag: A couple who looked like Meg Ryan and Harrison Ford but were dull as crap and spent most of the time locked in their V-berth; a Canadian nurse and a plonker who thought he knew more than the instructors. We named him Captain Giblet Bag as he spent most of the day in a Speedo swim suit that looked like..well pull the giblet bag out of a roast chicken and ...er the name fit.

Cows on a Beach

It's a new phenomenon on Flickr. Cows like the beach too: 

Song for Friday

It was number 1 in the Top 10 Sailing Songs and it's a great bit of live Jimmy Buffet from his San Diego concert in 2004. Here is Son of a son of sailor and the lyrics below.

Altogether now.

Son of a son of a sailor
By: jimmy buffett
1978
As the son of a son of a sailor
I went out on the sea for adventure
Expanding the view of the captain and crew
Like a man just released from indenture

As a dreamer of dreams and a travelin man
I have chalked up many a mile
Read dozens of books about heroes and crooks
And I learned much from both of their styles

Chorus:
Son of a son, son of a son
Son of a son of a sailor
Son of a gun, load the last ton
One step ahead of the jailer

Top 10 Sailing Videos c/o Marine Blast

A great selection cutesy of Marine Blast

http://sailingstuff.wordpress.com/video-collection/

This one's my favorite

The passing of a sailor's sailor - Carleton Mitchell, 96

One of the things about getting older (I am 43 and it's a difficult age) is that I have started paying more attention to the obituaries. I try to find reassurance in the fact that most obituaries are for people who have passed away in their 80s or 90s.

In today's obituaries, there was the announcement by John Rousmaniere of the passing of Carleton Mitchell, the celebrated three-time winner of the Newport-Bermuda race. It's a lovely piece about a man who was a classic 1940s adventurer.  I especially loved this quote that sums up what I love about sailing and the sea:

“No 20th-century man can really escape, but a boat gives a man the opportunity to get away from the turmoil and into direct contact with nature,” he told Gay Talese of The New York Times in 1958, after he won the Miami-to-Nassau yacht race. “Somehow the detached life on the sea gives me the ability to think. It’s a life of action, yet contemplation.”

You can read the full obit here. It's worth a read.