IN THE FIELD: Shiver Me Timbers

In a previous post [https://dhphotosite.wordpress.com/2012/06/27/in-the-field-out-to-sea/] I described a small bit of my adventure on the Intercoastal Waterway. We saw watercraft of all shapes and sizes during our travels, but when we saw this ship early one morning we joked about how it looked like a pirate ship.

Since our youngest crew member was an eight year old boy and was totally fascinated with pirates, we pretended the buccaneers were still sleeping off the previous nights pillaging and rabble rousing. We told him no one was keeping watch and they would not notice our passing. But if someone had seen or heard us they would have sounded the alarm and subjected us to the pirates’ colorful language and less than civil behavior. And then they would have boarded and raided our boat

We pretended that the pirates most likely would have taken all our provisions consisting of seven pounds of fresh shrimp, three dozen eggs, some packages of carrots and celery, several jars of peanut butter and jelly, four loaves of bread and the multiple jugs of wine. And if we were really lucky they would not find our stash of numerous packages of Pecan Twirls and the full case of family size cans of Dinty Moore Stew. We kept up the fantasy going for quite sometime…after all, what would a boat trip be without make-believe pirates?

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IN THE FIELD: Forecast…Fog

Early one morning while vacationing on the coast of Maine, my wife and I went down to the docks to see the boats and ships off for their daily sail. The fog was thick, but for the folks there, it was nothing unusual. There were lobstermen, fishermen, and deckhands bustling about, getting ready for a day out at sea.

We hung around the docks chatting with the fishermen, but kept our conversations short since everyone wanted to leave port before the tide went out. The fishermen gave us inside information on where the locals shopped for fresh seafood. And later in the day we did visit several of those secret places.

This is an older photo I shot on slide film before the digital age. Due to the low light levels, the telephoto lens I was using, and the floating dock I was standing on, the use of a tripod was necessary. Any bit of motion would have been magnified. Luckily the seas were calm. I was able to hand-hold shots when I was using shorter, brighter lenses, which is much easier when on a busy dock.

The ship in the photo is a historic three masted wooden schooner built in 1941. She spent over 40 years fishing offshore, most notably the Grand Banks and George’s Banks in the Atlantic. After her fishing career, she was converted to a passenger vessel for the windjammer trade in Maine. At the time I photographed the ship, she was named the Natalie Todd. She has since sailed to the west coast and been renamed American Pride. Her new home port is in Long Beach California as part of the American Heritage Marine Institute.