Maritime Monday for September 11th, 2017: Simon Says...

The Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum is home to approximately 40-50 polydactyl (six-toed) cats.

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 West Home

The Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum was the residence of author Ernest Hemingway (from 1931 to 1939) in Key West, Florida, United States. It is located on Whitehead Street, across from the Key West lighthouse. The house stands at an elevation of 16 feet (4.9 m) above sea level but is still the second-highest site on the island. It was originally built in 1851 by Asa Tift, a marine architect and salvage wrecker, who used 18 inch thick limestone blocks quarried from the site. It has survived many hurricanes. more

Ernest Hemingway’s Cats Didn’t Get In The Way Of His Manliness (PHOTOS)

Found among a collection of slides depicting fairground scenes in Newcastle; Courtesy of Tyne & Wear Museums. The Biggest Things Ever to be Transported by Sea

06 September 2017 via Oxford Academic (Oxford University Press):

A Very Short Fact – Ferdinand Magellan’s ship the Victoria returned to Spain on this day in 1522, becoming the first ship to circumnavigate the globe. The Victoria was the only ship to survive the expedition, which began in August 1519.

A replica was built in 1992 and is operated by the Fundación Nao Victoria, Seville. From 2004-2006, The Nao Victoria replica retraced some of Magellan’s footsteps while sailing around the world using only 16th century navigation technology. Nao Victoria on wikipedia – image: Fort Myers Beach Chamber of Commerce

Deepest Fish Ever Recorded — Documented at Depth of 8,178 m in Mariana Trench (August 24, 2017)

Kelp was dubbed “the new kale” a few years back by chefs, nutritionists and foodies who embraced its oceanic flavors and purported health benefits. Now seaweed is the star ingredient in “Selkie,” a beer at the Portsmouth Brewery on New Hampshire’s seacoast. Its named after a mesmerizing, mythological water creature that — as the story goes — can shed its skin to take human form on land.

From Ocean To Potion: Kelp Finds A Niche In The Craft Beer Market

A Dutch fleet stuck in the ice. A group of French soldiers sent to capture it. What could go wrong?

The Only Time in History When Men on Horseback Captured a Fleet of Ships

The Anacostia River is often called D.C.’s “Forgotten River” — shallower and tougher to navigate than the Potomac. It’s historically polluted by industry waste, sediment, sewage and just plain garbage. For a long time, though, members of the Seafarers Yact Cluhave thought of themselves as the Anacostia’s stewards.

They Built Their Own Boating ‘Shangri-La’

Lewis T. Green, a shop teacher at a D.C. high school, was trying to create a boat club for himself and other black boaters in the city. Green asked federal officials for permission to use land for his fledgling group, but didn’t have much luck. He eventually got the attention of the philanthropist Mary McLeod Bethune, who in turn contacted her friend, Eleanor Roosevelt, who was then-first lady of the United States. Soon enough, the Interior Department allowed Green the use of a small plot by the railroad tracks near the Anacostia River. It’s where Seafarers Boat Club — now Seafarers Yacht Club — began and where it still stands.

From High Heels to Mukluks – Edith “Jackie” Ronne (October 13, 1919 – June 14, 2009) was an American explorer of Antarctica and the first woman in the world to be a working member of an Antarctic expedition (1947-8). She and Jennie Darlington, wife of the expedition’s chief pilot, became the first women to overwinter in Antarctica. They spent 15 months together with 21 other members of the expedition in a small station they had set up on Stonington Island in Marguerite Bay. image: The Ronne Family Explorers of Antarctica

The Texas Towers were a set of three radar facilities off the eastern seaboard of the United States which were used for surveillance by the United States Air Force during the Cold War. Modeled on the offshore oil drilling platforms first employed off the Texas coast, they were in operation from 1958-1963. After the collapse of one of the towers in 1961, the remaining towers were closed due to changes in threat perception and out of a concern for the safety of the crews.

Top Secrets of America – North Atlantic Radar Stations

“Texas Tower number 4, anchored in 30 fathoms of water, [about 180 feet,] rocked ominously in even moderate seas. Navy underwater survey teams identified and corrected some of the problems found with the supports, but nothing could offset the continual damage below the surface. On September 12, 1960, Hurricane Donna battered the tower with 132-mile-an-hour winds and waves in excess of 50 feet, doing enough damage to force the Air Force and its construction contractor to begin completely renovating TT-4. A caretaker crew of 14 contractor maintenance workers and 14 Air Force personnel stayed aboard the tower. On January 15, 1961, a fierce winter gale bore in on the hapless station and ripped off all 3 of its legs in succession. Its 28 occupants sank with the platform into the sea; none survived.

Five Texas Towers were were originally planned to be built off the Atlantic coast, extending radar coverage seaward. Three were (completed), but TT-1 and TT-5 were never built. more

additional video: Doomed Tower at Sea (Part 1) – Doomed Tower at Sea (Part 2)

In a lobster-fishing career spanning more than 40 years, Maine resident Alex Todd thought he had seen it all. Then, last month, he hauled in a white, almost translucent crustacean which he called “by far the weirdest one I’ve caught”.

Shock lobster: ghostly, translucent crustacean caught off Maine coast

Waterspouts. The philosophy of storms; 1841

Waterspout. Science of the seven seas; 1945

LA Weekly – Donning black clothes and plastic fish masks, they wind their way through Joy Division covers with modified lyrics that explore the daily, often baleful, goings-on of the sea.

“It would have been one of my dreams to do a Joy Division cover band, but there are already a lot of Joy Division cover bands,” said Howard Hallis, who performs as singer Ian Clownfish. However, there was not a maritime Joy Division parody act.

Koi Division is the only fish-based Joy Division cover band you need

Koi Division – Whale in the Sand

Performed at the California Institute of Abnormalarts in North Hollywood 6-24-17. Koi Division are Ian Clownfish, Hook, Steve Moray, & Bernard Salmon from Los Angeles, Pacific Ocean.

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