Maritime Monday for June 12th, 2017: Synalpheus pinkfloydi

Sadie Samuels, lobster fisher in Rockport, Maine. (Chris Crisman Photography) Stunning photos of women doing ‘men’s work’ shatter gender stereotypes

After taking on water for about 2 hours, log barge Seaspan Survivor begins to dump it’s cargo into Ladysmith Harbour. Tug Seaspan King looks on. Vancouver Island, British Columbia; June 4, 2017. See also

“The Imports of Great Britain from France, Louis-Philippe Boitard, 1757” on *British Tars 1740-1790* – Boitard was more than happy to tap into British worries about French influence on their culture. This political cartoon depicts the arrival of dandies and the emasculation of Londoners by the goods brought across the channel. Read

The alleged kingpin of one of the biggest domestic wildlife smuggling operations ever to hit the East Coast is exactly where you’d expect to find him on a rainy evening in early May: firmly planted in a swivel chair at a big green metal desk inside his renovated Quonset hut on Foster Street, in Ellsworth, Maine. Inside the Multimillion-Dollar World of Eel Trafficking on National Geographic

A picture tells a thousand words on All Things Vintage

View of Hudson Dock North, Sunderland, c1898; Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums. The port authority was constituted in 1717 by Act of Parliament, which appointed the River Wear Commissioners to manage and improve the harbour and river vital to the coal trade on which the region’s prosperity depended. more

The Intercept – Israeli planes and torpedo boats attacked this US Navy research ship USS Liberty in the Mediterranean Sea near the Sinai Peninsula on June 8, 1967. Photo: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

Fifty Years Later, NSA Keeps Details of Israel’s USS Liberty Attack Secret

On June 8, 1967, an Israeli torpedo tore through the side of the unarmed American naval vessel USS Liberty, approximately a dozen miles off the Sinai coast. The ship, whose crew was under command of the National Security Agency, was intercepting communications at the height of the Six-Day War when it came under direct Israeli aerial and naval assault.

The Six-Day War between Israel and its neighbors Jordan, Syria, and Egypt was a conflict that the United States chose to stay out of, despite Israel’s entreaties for military support. Half a century later, The Intercept is publishing two classified documents provided in the cache of files leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden related to the attack and its aftermath. keep reading

US Coast Guard Northeast – The crew of US Coast Guard Cutter Tackle and US Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod met some new friends while upgrading Saddleback Lighthouse (Saddleback Ledge Light) to LED technology. #AtoN

Video by Aux Bob Trapani (caution very loud)

Octopi Embedded in Ceramic Vessels by Keiko Masumoto

Octopus takes photos of children at the Sea Life Aquarium. “When we first tried to get her to take a photo, it only took three attempts for her to understand the process,” said one of the trainers. “That’s faster than a dog. Actually it’s faster than a human in some instances.” See Video

P & O cruise ship Azura passing through the Solent at Ryde Sands – Photo by Phil Farmer

Ryde is an English seaside town on the north-east coast of the Isle of Wight. This still strongly visible in the town’s central and seafront architecture. As a resort, the town is noted for its expansive sands which are revealed at low tide, making its pier necessary on the wide beach for a regular passenger ferry service. Ryde Pier is a listed structure, and the fourth longest pier in the United Kingdom, as well as the oldest. more

“The Mary Ellen Carter” is a song written and recorded by Stan Rogers, intended as an inspirational hymn about triumphing over great odds. It tells the story of a heroic effort to salvage a sunken ship, the Mary Ellen Carter, by members of her former crew. Portland, Maine-based folk group Schooner Fare (and) Ian Robb recorded it with the other members of Finest Kind on his album From Different Angels.

So inspiring is the song that it is credited with saving at least one life. On February 12, 1983 the ship Marine Electric was carrying a load of coal from Norfolk, Virginia to a power station in Somerset, Massachusetts… keep reading

There was a time when these floating hotels that have rested on the lakes of Kashmir since the 1800s, were host to movie stars, artists, writers, famous musicians and wealthy western travellers searching for inspiration and tranquility. Today, the Buckingham Palace of Kashmir (built in 1930) has seen better days. Along with countless other houseboats on the lakes of Srinagar, it is in desperate need of repairs and the wood is rotting. Keep reading

Ian Hamilton Finlay, “Ho/Horizon/On,” from The Blue and the Brown Poems (New York: Atlantic Richfield Company & Jargon Press, 1968) Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2016.PR.36) (courtesy the Estate of Ian Hamilton Finlay)

An Eye for Words: Concrete Poets at the Getty – click that link if you want to read a bunch of artsy-fartsy talk about persistence of vision and blablahblah so gloopy and dismal that it even makes Miss Monkey’s eyes roll with its sheer nebulous pretension. I included it here because well, if anybody knows anything about horizons that get all blurry and seem to just go on for ever and ever, it’s sailors.