After high winds and heavy rains brought by Hurricane Harvey, a mysterious sea creature with fangs and no face washed up on the shoreline in southeastern Texas. Preeti Desai, social media manager at the National Audubon Society, posted pictures of the critter earlier this month on Twitter, asking, “What the heck is this??” Desai, who said she had accompanied conservationists … [Read more...]

The Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum provides a sanctuary to 54 polydactyl (six-toed) cats. According to the museum, a ship captain once gave Ernest a white six-toed cat, and now some of its descendants live in the Hemingway Home and Museum located in Key West--precisely where Hurricane Irma is now making landfall. 54 Cats Riding Out Hurricane Irma in Ernest Hemingway’s Key … [Read more...]

Britain's First General Mutiny on the BBC World Update: This past Friday, Dan Damon (broadcasting from the Southampton Docks) looked back to 1797 when sailors anchored in ships at Spithead and the Nore mutinied over inhumane working conditions for seamen in 18th century England. The mutinies happened in the wake of the American and French revolutions, triggered the first of … [Read more...]

Wreckage Of USS Indianapolis, Sunk By Japanese In WWII, Found In Pacific London's Floating Bookshop on the BBC US Senate committee rejects most of Trump’s proposed cuts to NOAA Cuts reduced from $900 million to $85.1 million National Fisherman - The committee voted to fully fund NOAA operations, including ocean monitoring, fisheries management, coastal grants to … [Read more...]

Pioneer North Sea Divers: In the 1970s, deep sea divers were at the sharp end of the North Sea oil boom. Alex Last has been speaking to the former diver David Beckett, who wrote The Loonliness of a Deep Sea Diver, about his dangerous life working under the waves.  More on BBC World Service Brewing and seafaring are ancient human endeavors. Beer was first … [Read more...]

On April 19, 1912, surviving crew members of the RMS Titanic gathered in the small assembly hall of the American Seaman’s Friend on Jane Street. They held a memorial service for those lost just four days before, swallowed up by the freezing Atlantic. The building, the American Seamen’s Friend Society Sailors’ Home and Institute, was built in 1908 to accommodate the society’s … [Read more...]

Viking longboats on the Thames Oscar Adolf Wisting (6 June 1871 – 5 December 1936) was a Norwegian Naval officer and polar explorer. Together with Roald Amundsen he was the first person to reach both the North and South Poles. In later years Oscar Wisting was an active force behind the preparations and building of the Fram Museum in Oslo, a museum built to … [Read more...]